Crossroads
by lachambre11
Summary: "It's not having what you want. It's wanting what you've got." Ron and Hermione were happily married, but now they're strangers. When his coworker shows interest,can Ron cheat on his wife? Or the love they still feel can conquer the distance between them?
1. Prologue

**Crossroads**

"_More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."_

Woody Allen

***~***

**Prologue:** There are some lines and some roads that you just don't cross. You don't cross them because they're either too blurry or too rocky to be crossed. You don't cross them for fear of retribution, or for fear of what's lying ahead.

And then there are the ones you're tempted to cross, to walk all over, and to cross them so fast that you can barely see where they had begun in the first place. Whether it's because of the powerful feeling of knowing that you're capable of doing it, or because you want to know what it feels like when you eventually cross them.

Even if there's too much at stake. Even if you're about to risk losing the most important thing in your life. Because you know that if you don't do it, you'll always wonder.

So you do it anyway, you stomp all over the line, because at that moment you feel like the world is yours to take. Like you are truly, completely and painfully alive.

_And it feels fucking great._


	2. And The Hero Will Drown

**Crossroads**

**Chapter 1 –** **And The Hero Will Drown****.**

"_Rain, rain, go away,_

_Come again another day,_

_All the world is waiting for the sun."_

Rain - Breaking Benjamin

***~***

"Tonight was such a high." Sarah smiled at me prettily, basking in the after-glow that only your first high-profile suspect chase and imprisonment can bring. "I don't know why anyone does drugs."

"Being an Auror does have its perks."

"It's moments like these that compensate for the long hours we put in, the physical discomfort we have to endure and the lack of personal life."

"When you put it like that, it's a wonder we have to turn down so many applications for the program every year."

"I may complain about the job, but I certainly love doing it. At least, that's the official version I'm telling our boss."

"Harry isn't so bad."

"Ron." She glared at me. "The man is a workaholic Auror completely committed to his profession and a boss that demands only excellence. And you, well, you're obviously biased, being his best mate and all. He married your _sister_. You two saved the Wizarding world together." She cocked her head to the side, eyeing me appraisingly. "Thanks for all that, by the way."

"I got a Chocolate Frog Card out of it, didn't I?" I couldn't help but grin at her. The twenty-five-year-old Auror really was a good newcomer to be partnered with. Wicked sense of humour, great reflexes and spell work and as stealth as they came. Easy on the eyes, too. "What more could I possibly want for my life?"

"It seems to me that if you were that satisfied, you wouldn't work so hard."

"What can I do? It's for the greater good, and all that. If it were for me, I'd say 'sod it all' and move to a tropical island, enjoying the sun instead of prancing around in this sodding weather getting my good old bones wet whenever I get the chance."

"You could just ask Potter for a vacation, you know. You really could."

"As if he would let me take one."

"Pft. _You_ allow the department to own your pretty little arse because you love this job just as much as Potter and I do, maybe even more."

"Not everyone is as hardcore about the job as you and Harry, Sarah."

"No, not everyone. But you are. You're the hardest worker of us all."

"And does that makes me automatically unsatisfied? Maybe I'm just very ambitious."

"You might be ambitious, sure, but something tells me that, to you, family comes first. And if you're spending so much time focusing on your work, maybe that's because there's something you're missing in your life."

And just like that, Sarah put into words everything I had been doing for the past few years. I wasn't in it because I was ambitious, not at all. Or even for the glory or satisfaction of doing something that enabled everyone to feel protected. I did it because I loved feeling useful, feeling as if I was truly good at doing something. I didn't use to work this much before.

You see, I'd had a loving wife to come home to every night and wonderful children to love and be loved by. My life had been complete and full of possibilities and work was something that I enjoyed doing, because it was with my best mate and it meant my children would grow up in a safer world, but that was about it.

If Hermione had ever asked me to, I would have quit my job in a heartbeat to do whatever she needed me to. But she had never needed me for anything for a long time now and had never asked me to do anything for her or the children.

And for the past years, ever since Hugo had left for Hogwarts, Hermione was all about what she could do, what she could achieve, how far she could get. And all I had was time on my hands, so to keep myself from going mental, I worked even harder.

Then I worked some more.

Do not get me wrong, my children meant everything to me, though they got a little uncomfortable whenever I told them that. They weren't so little anymore.

My beautiful baby girl, my Rosie, had grown from this scrawny little know-it-all into a confident young woman with grand plans of becoming a writer and changing the world in the process. She was making her old dad very proud. She had left school two years ago and was travelling across the world to get in contact with new Muggle and Wizarding cultures and write about them for a travelling column she had in Ginny's magazine, _The __Lioness' Pride_.

My Hugo was all bravado and temper, an awkward seventeen-year-old with too much energy to spend. He was already taller than I was, walking around with an acoustic guitar strapped to his shoulder and had just got himself a pretty girlfriend.

And my wife… Well, she was still there — physically, at least. Always busy, bustling around, worried about every single breathing organism to walk on this Earth. Except me. Hermione was everywhere, and yet I couldn't feel her, not like I'd used to. There was an ache in my heart where she'd used to be and it hurt like hell whenever I thought about it.

Somehow, it was just easier to throw myself into my work like she did. It made it more bearable, easier to forget how absent she had been or how much I missed her, even when she was around our house or lying beside me in bed.

On the other hand, it made it easier to notice the little things: how she never kissed me good morning anymore or that she didn't seem to remember how we used to leave each other notes scattered around our house, telling the other how much we appreciated them or just to say that we loved each other. There were no notes now, except for the odd ones reminding me of a Healer's appointment or an occasional letter from one of the kids she knew I would want to read and answer.

"You're a little ambitious yourself, aren't you, Sarah?"

"I don't see it like that, not as ambition, not really. I'm just motivated, passionate about everything that I do, especially my job. "

"Were you a Gryffindor?"

"God, no! A Ravenclaw and proud to be one."

"I thought Ravenclaws strived for knowledge and attached themselves by the hip to books and theories."

"Well, most of us do, but that's a stereotype — like saying that Gryffindors are stupid and Hufflepuffs are naïve. Some Ravenclaws have a unique approach to dealing with learning and knowledge, and I am one of them. Books never did much for me, except to help me get wherever I wanted to be. Theory can only get a person so far, and I tend to get a bit restless when I'm not moving, doing something…"

"You should tell my wife that. I swear she's trying to go down in history as the most literate person in the last century."

Sarah frowned and bit her lower lip. Her pale, Irish complexion flushed, and she looked away. What had I done wrong? Had I offended her somehow?

"Sarah —"

"Listen, Ron we, as in my roommate Antonia and I, are hosting a huge Halloween celebration in two weeks. I know you're all about the job, but maybe you could consider coming by? It wouldn't hurt to relax once in a while. Drink, dance, have fun. Does this concept sound familiar to you?"

"I might be a little too old for that, don't you think?"

"Nonsense, you don't look a day over thirty."

"That's flattering, I suppose, as I am _several_ years over thirty."

"I would, I mean Antonia and I would be really happy if you could make it."

"I'll talk to Hermione, she might enjoy the idea. Taking a break from work, relaxing. I guess we're entitled to have some fun, once in a while."

Sarah worried her bottom lip again. I was definitely seeing a pattern here, and this wasn't the first time it had happened. Every time I mentioned Hermione, she would frown, pout or change the subject.

I knew my wife didn't particularly care for her, and they had butted heads about how to deal with some of the people we had arrested a couple of times, but I hadn't thought there was much to it. They had always acted, if anything, civilized around each other whenever they happened to meet.

What was it with the sudden antagonism?

"That would be great." She enunciated every word, sucking a deep breath at the end, and an adorable crease appeared in her right side of her lips as she did. My stomach churned. Sarah caught me staring and gave me a toothy smile that had enough power to light the entire room.

My hands started to sweat and red warning lights suddenly lit up inside my head. This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all.

The lights blinked red, bold letters warning me: Danger, Ronald Weasley!

It was clear as day now why she looked putout every time I mentioned Hermione's name or declined her invitations to grab a pint after work.

Sarah Coates fancied me. A lot.

_Oh, bloody sodding hell. _

***~***

It was a couple of hours past midnight when I got home. The sound of Hermione's non-stop scribbling on some legal parchment from her study was the only sound that could be heard in our big, empty house. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, I avoided the creaky step on the stairs and instead ended up accidentally stepping on Crookshanks' tail. The blasted cat hissed loudly. I could almost hear Hermione perking up, about to fire a question.

"I'm home!" It would be easier if I beat her to it.

"I can hear that," was her answer, dripping with sarcasm. I could tell by her tone that she wasn't amused. Oh, well.

"Isn't it a tad late, Ron?"

"We had a lead on McNair." That bastard was still on the run, so many years after the fall of Voldemort. I truly hated the persistence that some daft Death Eaters still showed. "We had to chase him halfway across Glasgow then there was all the paperwork once he was safely secured in a cell."

"We?"

"Me and my partner." She knew that, she knew who my partner was. What was up with all the questions? Hermione wasn't one to forget things or play dumb. She was seriously irked by something I had done, that much I knew.

"Sarah Coates?" Her sigh was loud enough for me to hear through the bathroom door. "The pretty, young blond on your team? The one that worked with Italy's Elite Squad for a while and transferred back here six months ago?"

"That's the one."

"Oh." I dropped my dark green set of work robes along with my common clothes on the bathroom floor, and set the hot water to its maximum. "So, it was fun?"

"A riot. You know how we, middle-aged Aurors, love to chase elderly Death Eaters out in the rain, occasionally slipping in the mud and spoiling our clothes. Some people even claim that kind of action does wonders for your joints."

"Ron!" The sternness in her voice carried on, even when I tried to drown myself under the constant flux of the water that was nearly peeling my skin off and turning it an angry shade of red. I had to wash away the coconut smell of Sarah's hair and the look of raw lust I saw in her green, almond-shaped eyes. It had been a long time since I had ever felt this…_wanted. _

Back in reality, I was half-hard and miserable. Groaning, I took my undesired erection in my left hand, bracing myself against the wall with my right one.

Shallow, fast strokes and I was lost in blurred memories of Hermione and me making love in the shower, her slick hotness enveloping me, her voice murmuring sweet nothings against my skin, her pink tongue nibbling my ear lobe. I came, hurriedly and hot against my belly.

It wasn't enough to erase the need of burying myself in Hermione's body, of feeling her smooth and tight all over me again.

It wasn't enough to erase the look of pure longing on Sarah's face.

Oh, sod it all. I couldn't be more fucked if I'd tried.

**A.N:** I would like to thank Shannon for encouraging me to follow this plot with caution, Lisa for being a fantastic friend and beta for this story, as well as PigWithHair for getting onboard with "Crossroads" as well.


	3. I Want To Be Forever Young

**Crossroads**

Chapter 2 – I Want To Be Forever Young

"_So let's face it, this was never what you wanted  
But I know it's fun to pretend…  
Now blank stares and empty threats are all I have.  
They're all I have."_

Day Old Hate – City And Colour

***~***

Sarah dropped the tiny boxes of The Leakey's take-out food on my desk and plopped down on the seat across me, sitting with her longs legs crossed and her dark blond hair all over her face in disarray.

"Roasted chicken with tangerine sauce," she said, tying her hair in a bun secured by her wand. "The Venetian Salad without broccoli, the red type of rice and the chocolate trifle for desert. You can kiss my arse later."

"Only if you remembered to..."

"Also bring you the Fizzling Sparks cherry-flavoured drink? Yes, I remembered. Though, I think the citrus fruits flavour is manlier."

"Erm...thanks?"

"Not so fast, Weasley. You owe me one now, and rest assured I'll return to collect sometime in the future."

She gave me a knowing smirk, and I could feel myself blushing. Sarah was no Legilimens, but I felt like she was invading my mind, reading all the guilt-filled thoughts I had been having about her since I had realized she fancied me.

Harry strolled in my office and raised an eyebrow at the scene. I hated the fact that he seemed able to convey hidden messages through raising a single eyebrow, while the best I could do was look constipated from trying.

This particular single-eyebrow-raising, for example, was clearly stating, _"Why are you having a cosy, intimate meal with your very attractive co-worker, married-best-mate_?" I answered him with my patented eye-roll._"Mind your own business and stop being such a nosy git, Harry."_

"Uh...guys? I'm still here."

Sarah was looking at us with amusement written all over her face. When Harry opened his mouth to say something, she just shrugged.

"Look, I get it. Everybody in the office knows what you boys are like, soul mates or something. Guy love and all that. I hear it's very popular nowadays."

"Coates, if you're insinuating..."

"I'm insinuating nothing, oh-great-saviour-of-our-world-and-the-bloke-who-signs-my-paychecks. I don't judge, I merely mock."

"Well, stop mocking and start working. I need that report about Dark activity on Finland by five o'clock."

"Right on, Master."

She bowed at Harry and winked at me cheekily before running out of my office, leaving her coconut-ish scent in her wake. I had to stop noticing those things, as of yesterday.

"So..." Harry looked awkward, to say the least. "You don't think that everybody thinks we're...erm...in love, right?"

"Of course not! We're not like _that!_"

"Exactly!" he bellowed. "Not that there's anything wrong with _that_," Harry added, his tone significantly lowered.

"No, sexual identity is a complex thing." I had had enough sense to internalize this opinion after Hermione had made me sleep on our sofa one too many times, whenever I'd alluded to Dean's bisexuality in anything other than a favourable light. I guessed that Harry had had experiences like this with Ginny, as well.

Not that she would let him sleep in her bed, anyways. As far as I was concerned, my little sister and my best mate had never shagged. James, Albus and Lily had merely been found under cabbages, as Hermione had told Rosie when she'd asked where babies came from, at the tender age of four.

That was my story, and I was sticking with it.

"Anyway," Harry continued, trying to shake off the remaining awkwardness, "I was thinking that maybe you could start to work exclusively as the Head of our training program, and lay off the missions for a while."

"Where did that come from, Harry? You know how much I love the field-work. Training clueless midgets isn't nearly as fun as chasing the bad guys."

"Are you sure, mate? I mean, it's quite an honour you would be passing up. The hours aren't nearly as gruelling as the ones you have to put in now, you get better pay, seniority and a two-month vacation per year."

"Maybe when I start going soft, like you did," I joked. But Harry merely looked away, and I knew right then that something was wrong. The last time he had looked this shifty was when he told me he was getting a promotion and that I was going to be partnered with somebody else.

"Why am I getting the feeling that this is a forced promotion, Harry? For a candidate for the next Minister of Magic, you're quite awful at the whole lying and being sneaky thing."

"Look, Ron, this isn't an easy thing to say. I hate that I have to do this, but I have no choice in the matter." He sat down and cast a Muffliato on the door. This was even more serious than I had thought. "You're one of the most important members of our department, and one of the most successful Aurors of the last fifteen years. But, you're also one of the oldest members on the team, and the only one that's still working in the field while the others have moved on.

"The powers above think it's time for you to do the same."

"And do _you _happen to agree with them?" I was managing to keep my temper at bay, but my voice came out so unnaturally cold that I could barely recognize it as my own. "Do you, Harry?"

It wasn't as though I didn't know his answer, but I was still surprised to hear it.

"Yes." He sighed, his face a mask of guilt and sorrow. "Unfortunately, it's true. You're a hell of an Auror, Ron, but you're getting too old for the job. Your reflexes aren't as fast as they used to be, and your body needs more recuperating time after a chase than the rest of the team."

"So what you're saying is that I'm dragging us down?" Harry shook his head, but I could taste blood in my mouth from where I had been biting my tongue, trying to stop myself from flinging across the room and bashing Harry's gigantic head on the wall repeatedly. "Fuck you, Harry. You and the powers above. I don't need to listen to this, to listen to my bloody _brother _talking shit about the way I do my job! I don't need your criticism, and I don't need your pity promotion!" Harry feeble attempts at an apology did nothing to placate me.

Before I left what was probably now my former office, I turned around and granted Harry my best sardonic smile.

"I guess I was wrong about you not being Minister of Magic material, after all. You're sneaky and cold-hearted enough to do the job with perfection. Congratulations on your journey to stardom, Ministry's-poster-boy."

And without a backwards glance, I shut the door in my best friend's face.

***~***

"Ron, wait! Ron!"

Sarah was jogging behind me while I was stomping towards the lift. She finally caught up, and didn't seem to notice my murderous mood.

"What the effing hell happened between you and Harry just now?"

"Mind your own business, Sarah. Maybe if you get a life you can stop worrying so much about mine."

"Ouch!" She shot me an indignant look as the lift took off. "Totally uncalled for! I'll clobber you in the head for that smart-arse remark later, when you're less upset. I'm guessing you don't want to talk about it?"

"Merlin, I wonder what gave you that idea!"

"Easy there, Grumpy."

"What?"

"Whom, you mean." She stifled a laugh when I shot her a questioning look. "You know, Grumpy, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?" I was still getting nothing. "Nevermind. Muggleborn thing."

We reached the attic, and I strode out of the lift.

"Look, Sarah, it's nothing personal, all right? I just don't feel like sitting somewhere and talking about my feelings like a sodding girl, that's all."

"I know. That's why we're going to a random pub and getting royally sloshed right now. Then later, if you feel like it, we might sit and talk about your feelings like you're a sodding girl. Or just sit and not talk at all."

"Sarah..."

"Let's go, Weasley."

"What about your report, the one about Finland?"

She snorted.

"As if you care about that right now."

"True. But maybe you should."

"I care more about you right now." She let it slip, but looked away in a feeble attempt to avoid blushing. Her porcelain complexion gave her away, though.

I arched one eyebrow.

"Why are you looking constipated all of the sudden?"

Ok, so I had _tried _to arch one eyebrow.

"I am not!" She arched her eyebrow in response. Bugger, she was an expert of the single-eyebrow-raising technique too. "Look, let's just go," I gave in.

"The first drink is on you," she informed me, before grabbing a fistful of Floo Powder. She stepped into one of the marble fireplaces, yelled "The Trapped Leprechauns!" and disappeared in a whoosh of soot and fire.

***~***

**A.N: I wonder what happens next...Oh, wait, I do know! MWAHAHAHA!!! If you want to know as well, maybe you should leave me a review, or otherwise no updates until march... Now the question is: am I joking?**


	4. Racing Like A Pro

**Crossroads**

**Chapter 3 – Racing Like A Pro**

"_So drown me if you can  
or we could just have a conversation…  
And I fall, I fall, I falter.  
But I found you before I drift away."_

Day Old Hate – City And Colour.

***~***

"I was so sure they opened at ten..." Sarah frowned at the 'Closed' sign on the front door of Afternoon Delight's.

"This is bloody perfect." I was not amused. This was the fourth pub we'd tried, and they'd all still been closed.

"I wonder how alcoholics manage to stay drunk during the day, when you can't find an alcohol-serving pub in Diagon Alley opened at two o'clock! I thought you promised me we would get smashed and act girly?"

"Well, I did, and I'm just as surprised as you. Who knew people weren't allowed to serve Scorching Tequilas during lunch hour?!"

"Oh, this day is shaping up to be so fun..."

"Let's not lose hope here, okay? We still have a shot at the whole getting-drunk-and-acting-girly thing if we go to a Muggle bar or something."

"I'm not known for dealing with Muggle beverages well."

It's true. I still have a spider-shaped tattoo on my left buttock from my stag night. Hermione threw a fit when she first saw it, and after many failed attempts at removal spells, we learned that because I had done it the Muggle way, it could only be removed the Muggle way. This involved a thingy called a laser that shot hot light beams at my skin. Hermione had told me it was safe, but it wasn't her buttocks at risk, was it? The tattoo stayed there, and after a while Hermione grew fond of it, even nicknaming it 'Spidey'.

"Then we only have two options: one, go back to the Ministry and deal with whatever happened to make you angry like that-"

"Do I look like I want to be locked up in Azkaban for murder?"

"So option number 1 is discarded, then." Sarah smiled sweetly. I had to hand it to her. In her own deranged way, she was helping me feel a lot better. "Option number 2: I have a flat fully stocked with all kinds of drinks for my upcoming Halloween party. We could drink without spending galleons in a grimy pub, with dodgy bartenders who would gossip about one third of the Golden Trio traipsing around with a pretty youngster while he should be at work. And we wouldn't have to worry about making a complete fool of ourselves in a public place as well."

In the moment, it sounded logical enough.

"So, fancy going back to my place then, Weasley?"

I should've said no. I should've politely declined her invitation and walked away, should've gone back and punched Harry in the face, or tried to talk to my wife about the fact that I was feeling useless and betrayed. Instead, I found myself nodding at Sarah's suggestion, pretending to ignore the shivers that ran down my spine when she shot me her megawatt smile and grabbed my hand to Apparate us to her posh flat in West Kensington.

***~***

"What in Merlin's name are you making me drink, woman?"

Sarah giggled before swallowing another shot of the bright yellow drink in her cup.

"It's a, eek, Scorfing Tequila!" Scorfing Tequila? She giggled a little more. "I mean, Schortling, no, Scorching! That's it! Scorching Tequila!" I gulped down another shot, and felt as if my throat was paper-thin with thirst. It didn't mattered how much I drank of this thing – it only made me thirstier. "It's supposed to be pretty good."

"Who would want to drink this?" But we downed another shot. "It's bloody awful! I've never felt more parched in my entire life!"

"I think that's the point."

"What do you know? You were the one who thought that this _vile_ thing was a better idea than the Firewhiskey in the first place!"

"Firewhiskey is the liquor for pansies, grandpa." She noticed my frown at the endearment. "Did I just manage to put my exceptionally big feet in my mouth again?"

"No, it's nothing..." I was suddenly feeling very sober, so I poured another glass of the Scorching Tequila and gulped it down, flinching as my throat protested.

"Ron, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to imply that -" Sarah's green eyes were wide and shiny. She looked drunk and about to cry at her own tactless comment.

"Sarah, it's okay. I'm fine, I really am." She was still looking apologetic. "You're so drunk..." Triumph. She gave me a meek smile, and drank a little bit more.

"Look, I know you don't feel like talking about it, but I'm guessing that Harry finally told you about your... demotion, for lack of a better word."

"You knew about this?" The rage engulfed me again, white-hot, and I tried to get a hold of myself before I did something I would regret later. "I can't believe this! You're my partner! We're supposed to be friends. You knew about this all along and never bothered to tell me?"

"It wasn't my place, Ron. As far as I knew, it wasn't a final decision, more of a speculation. And I don't agree with the way it was sprung on you, because that was pure stupidity, but they do have a point."

I was too furious to speak, but I was seriously considering throwing my shot-glass at Sarah's pristine white walls, just to see them tainted bright-yellow.

"Aside from Alastor Moody, you're the Auror to work the longest in the field. And Moody only worked for that long because we had two blood wars, and even he retired in between. But we're at peace, Ron, and we have been for a long time. The evil outside, well, they're only small fish, and the trainees are more than fully qualified to handle them. But in order for us to have competent new trainees, we need competent Aurors teaching them. And you're the best we've ever had. So don't take this as a personal offence to your skills, because I don't really see it that way. And you've told me yourself that this job gets very tiring, very quickly. Maybe it's time for you to be where you're really needed. You know how to do the job, and you do it without hesitating. You're concentrated, hard-working, and just plain _wonderful._"

I wasn't angry anymore – how could I be? Sarah had just made me see the positive side of moving on. And even though I wasn't pleased with the way it was played out, I could definitely see myself whipping the new trainees into shape. Some of them were getting too comfortable and sloppy, two things one shouldn't be while working as an Auror.

And then there was more. Sarah was looking at me in the way my Hermione used to – like I was the most important person on the entire universe. If I leaned in just a couple of inches, I could kiss her full lips and learn how she tasted. But if I leaned in, I would cross a line somewhere, and would begin walking in an unknown direction. One that could turn out horribly.

"_Ron._" Her breath ghosted across my face, smelling like alcohol and something I could quite define, but was definitely curious to explore. "Kiss me."

*~*

**A.N:**_Hullo, dearies! *inner-Bellatrix blow kisses at you* I'm pretty much aware you guys probably hate me right about now - but it's just so fun I can't help myself! Now, I was merely joking about March last chapter. But this time it's true - I'm going out of town tomorrow afternoon, and I'll come back on March 1st, if things go well. It's a big holiday here on Brazil, Carnaval, and I intend to make the best of it. Updates will return as soon as I do - probably on its early days of March. If I'm up to it, possibly on the very same day. Thank you for reading and reviewing, and don't forget: vote on the Ron/Hermione 2008 Awards! Many thanks goes to Lisa, my adorable and hard-working beta =D_.


	5. You've Lost That Love Feeling

**Crossroads**

**Chapter 4 – You've Lost That Love Feeling.**

"_You think your days are uneventful and no one ever thinks about you.  
She goes her own way.  
She goes her own way…  
You think your days are ordinary and no one ever thinks about you.  
But we're all the same,  
And she can hardly breathe without you."_

She Has No Time – Keane

***~***

I uselessly tiptoed my way into our bedroom, trying to avoid a late-night confrontation with Hermione. But like the light sleeper she was, she began to stir the moment I opened the door.

"Ron?" She fumbled around for her wand. "_Lumos_. Why are you home so late?"

"I went out after work."

"With Harry?"

"No." I grimaced, trying to stay upright while untying my boots' laces. "With another friend. Harry's not my favourite person at the moment."

"What happened?" Her eyes looked for mine, and for the first time in a while, she sounded concerned and interested, which only made me feel guiltier for not telling her about what happened between me and Sarah.

"They don't think I'm useful as a field Auror anymore," I told her dispassionately. "They want to 'promote' me to head of the training group."

"That's good, isn't it? I thought you were tired from the long hours, the physical discomfort and the whole package."

"I am. But do you have any idea how bloody awful it is to hear you're no longer necessary in a job you've been doing for nearly twenty years? And from your supposed best mate, none the less?"

"I'm sure that's not how Harry had meant to deliver the news."

Hermione's expression showed compassion and sorrow for me. Then I noticed something that had been missing from her reaction, and I dreaded her response to my next statement.

"You don't sound awfully surprised."

"I'm the head of the Department of Magic Law Enforcement, Ron. All the legal paperwork concerning high-profile professions goes through me, including the ones on the Auror Office. You do know that."

"And?"

"And Harry had also asked for advice in which position to support."

"So what you're basically telling me is that you knew what was going to happen, that you also _helped _it to happen, but you hadn't thought of discussing it with me first?"

"Ron, I was consulted as your boss, not as your wife."

"Great to know you have your priorities straight, _darling._"

"I'm sorry, but I fail to see how this is about your hurt feelings! I thought that this was what you wanted: a chance to keep doing your job, only with less strain involved. Harry and I both knew about your dissatisfactions, and we did what it was within our power to try and make things easier for you."

"Why? Because I couldn't handle being a middle-aged Auror? Because you feel as if I'm your child and you have to decide what's best for me? Because you thought that plotting the end of my career with my best friend, behind my back, would please me? Tell me, Hermione, in which universe are you living? Are you so fucking wrapped up in your job and your ideals as to forget that I'm a fucking human being with needs, plans and goals as well?"

"That's enough, Ron!"

"I'm not the bloody Wizengamot for you to demand order from!"

"Stop it!"

"Why are you not fighting back, Hermione? Can't you find one sensible argument against my _over-reaction_? Can't you make a list of everything that puts you in a favourable light, while I'm portrayed as the goofy arse in all of this?"

"Oh, just shut the hell up, Ron! I'm not the one you can blame, yell at and mistreat just so you can feel better about yourself! I did what I had to do, and I'm sorry if it wasn't the cleverest move I've ever made, but I'm allowed to make some mistakes!"

Her face was dark red, twisted into a mask of anger and hatred. I'm sure I didn't look very different from her either.

"I can't stand how everyone treats me as though I'm supposed to know the right thing to do, how I'm supposed to know _everything! _You have needs? You have plans? Then bloody _tell me _instead of sulking around and blowing up when I don't know about them! Grow up, Ron!" she spat, the heat and the venom suddenly gone from her voice.

She looked tired, and I felt as if I was a hundred years old.

"Look, I don't know what I made to make you this angry Ron, but —"

"This wasn't about you, Hermione. I'm sorry." She looked incredulous. "Well, maybe it was, a little. I know how you like to have things under your control, but there are some lines you just don't cross, and you crossed one of them when you and Harry decided the future of my job without consulting me. I don't think I can easily get past that."

But then again, who was I to tell her off for sneaking around behind my back when I had been in another woman's flat just a few hours ago?

"I'm truly sorry for the way things turned out, Ron. If I had known that this was how you would react, I never would have told Harry to support this decision."

"I know." And once upon a time, she wouldn't have kept this information from me. She would have _known_ how this would make me feel. But the distance between us just kept steadily growing larger, and I had just helped add a good few miles to that. "But yelling at each other like this won't make anything better. We're both tired and in desperate need of some cooling off. Maybe we should sleep on it and try to talk in the morning, when we're less emotional."

"Oh, Ron, I'm sorry, but tomorrow I leave for the convention in Vienna about worldwide regulation for magical creatures. I thought you knew."

"I guess you forgot to tell me."

Hermione looked like she was about to apologize again, but I shrugged it off and went to the loo. When I came back, she was pretending to be asleep in our bed, and the light on her wand was out. I put my own on my bed table, near our wedding photo and a picture of Rosie and Hugo taken last summer.

"_Nox." _

I lay awake for the better half of that night, a bitter taste of shame and regret in my mouth and memories of blond hair and sorrowful brown eyes while Hermione tossed and turned in her sleep next to me.

***~***

**A.N: **Yay, I'm back! And so is my inner-Bellatrix! Review, please - a Hermione chapter is coming soon, and for those asking me about it, and we'll all know soon her side of this story.


	6. Mistaken For Strangers

**Crossroads**

**Chapter 5 – Mistaken For Strangers.**

"_When all the hard times outweigh the good__,  
And all your words are misunderstood,  
When the day seems lost from the start,  
You must follow your heart;  
You must follow your heart."_

Against The Grain – City And Colour.

***~***

Ron lay by my side, his breathing as heavy as my heart was. I wanted to reach out to him so badly, to touch him and feel his skin warm and welcoming to my touch, but I couldn't. I wouldn't. I was hurt, confused, and suspicious.

The inches between our bodies felt like miles, and I tried to remember the last time he had made a point of touching me, of letting me know that he wanted me as much as I wanted him. That he missed me as badly as I missed him.

I honestly thought his promotion would be for the best – that he would have liked to be home more often, and at reasonable hours. I thought he would have liked that his income would increase drastically, and that he wouldn't have to put up with the mountains of paperwork and bodily injuries that came with being a field Auror.

So when Harry had approached me for advice and explained all the benefits of the position they were considering Ron for, I was so happy… I reckoned, "this is it. Ron will finally get the recognition he deserves, and he'll be happy again. We'll be happy again."

But, judging from Ron's reaction, I was seeing just how wrong I'd been about the whole thing, how I was ignorant of his needs. How betrayed Ron must have been feeling, because it looked like Harry and I had decided things for him. But it wasn't like that, not really. I had thought that even though his promotion would be for the best, would be what he had wanted this whole time, he would still have a choice between staying where he was or moving ahead.

I had never meant to take the decision out of his hands, to take his choice away from him. I had acted stupidly by thinking otherwise, and of course Ron would be upset about mine and Harry's lack of sensitivity.

And I had always thought he would choose to move ahead. I hadn't, even once, considered that maybe he would see Harry discussing it with me as a disloyalty.

It was almost as though I didn't even know my husband anymore. Like the person lying next to me in bed was a stranger, not the man I'd been with for so many years.

Then there was that convention in Vienna. I couldn't believe I had to leave the next morning with this thick cloud of resentment and misunderstanding hanging over our heads. I wasn't blind or stupid – I knew we were in trouble.

I just never thought we were in so deep, that's all.

Was it fixable? Or we were damaged in a much more permanent and harmful way than I had thought? Did the cracks in our marriage go deeper than I thought? What if our foundation was compromised?

With those endless questions rolling around my head, I fell asleep without meaning to. Ron lay by my side, and the distance between us stretched by the second, our problems widening it exponentially.

***~***

When I woke up a couple of hours later, Ron was crumpled on his side of the bed, fully clothed and looking like he was in desperate need of a good night's sleep. I could smell the alcohol on his clothes and body, and couldn't help but wonder where he had been last night and whom he had been with.

I shivered – it must have been his partner, Sarah Coates, the new Auror transferred from Italy's Elite Squad. I was fairly certain of that. Whom else? Ron had no friends at the office apart from Harry, and no more than a distant, albeit friendly relationship with the other Aurors I knew about.

But Sarah Coates had crawled her way into his affections, making him consider her as his friend, as someone he could trust, on top of being his co-worker. She was young and tall, with the long, blond hair and the long legs. She was the textbook definition of pretty, a timeless beauty. I knew I very was far from that model.

I also knew that when it came to looks, there was no competing. Coates would win every single time, and that knowledge made my stomach sink.

Ron probably found her attractive. Maybe even irresistible.

I also knew she only had eyes for him. For _my _husband. _My _Ron.

That little lust-hungry cow.

Oh, I was onto her, all right. Always eyeing Ron, asking him for some late-night drinks or to a random party at her flat, or anything involving the two of them alone in a dimmed-lighted room.

Ron had never accepted her invitations; not until that night, at least. To make matters worse, he had come home at an ungodly hour, reeking of alcohol and an unusual scent that I had never smelled on him before. Was it _her? _Was her perfume all over him?

No, it couldn't be. Ron wouldn't… He would never cheat on me.

But sometimes I felt like I didn't even know him anymore. If he was capable of spending the better part of the night with another woman, then maybe he was capable of doing the thing I had _never_ thought he could do.

Still, Ron had never given me any reason to be suspicious of him, at least until that night. I knew that Sarah was playing all her cards on him, but I also knew he was as clueless about being attractive to women as he was when we were teenagers. He didn't notice the stares, the whispers, the pointing. And if he did, he didn't care. He had never needed anyone else but me, just like I had never needed anyone else but him. But it had been months since we had last been _together _and he had barely made an effort to touch me since.

Certainly, he couldn't go this long without…

_No, _I told myself. I had to stop making assumptions and considering all of those awful possibilities. I had to believe that Ron would never cheat on me, _ever._

I wasn't even sure he had been drinking with Sarah, and I wasn't even sure he even _knew _she was lusting after him.

However, I wasn't sure of anything anymore – of Ron's love, if he still found me desirable anymore, if he would ever forgive me for apparently deciding the future of his career with Harry without discussing it with him beforehand. Or even discussing it at all.

Not that he had been home enough for me to talk about anything with him anymore. Even when he'd been physically present, his mind had seemed to have strayed far away.

I would talk, and he wouldn't seem to listen. I would give him hints, but he would never seem to figure them out. I would wait up for him to come home from a mission, but he would go straight to the shower without even kissing me goodnight, or wanting to discuss his missions with me.

He didn't seem to care about my opinion on anything, care about what I was doing at work, or about what I thought, wanted, or needed in my life.

Not anymore.

Not like before.

I longed for his kiss, his touch, his attention, but he never seemed to want to give them to me. I missed him every day, even when he was standing right beside me. Where was the man I had married? What had happened to the promises of love and fidelity until the day we died?

Where was the man that used to kiss me awake in the morning, the one that loved to surprise me at work with a flower or a note with a simple "I love you" written on it? I missed him – I missed _everything _about him.

I wanted him back. I would get him back.

Sarah Coates had another thing coming if she thought, even for a second, that I would hand my husband over to her without putting up a fight. I had made a commitment to him, and even though our relationship wasn't like it used to be, I would fight for it.

I would fight for him, for _us. _Because we were worth it – Ron was worth fighting for, every time. He was worth crying over, and dying for. I loved him - _so much_ it hurt at times. Especially at times like these, when I felt us drifting further and further away, to unknown and frightening territories. I wouldn't lose him.

I had lost enough already – my parents, when they decided to moved permanently to Australia, ten years ago. Rose, whom, after Hogwarts, decided to travel around the world and write about her experiences while doing it. Hugo, who was now at his last year at Hogwarts, so busy with his studies, his friends and girlfriend, his music, basically _living, _to need me like he used to.

Both of my children didn't need me anymore, and to imagine that my husband felt the same way about me was downright paralyzing and heartbreaking.

This was the sort of loss I wasn't prepared for – never could see it coming.

Particularly, because Ron was all I had now – and even though I felt incomplete without the rest of my family around, without my children, nothing felt as crippling as the possibility of losing him. It wasn't about ownership or pride – it was about love and the promise of a lifetime together.

We still had a lot to look forward to, and I was deeply sorry for having lost sight of that and let that unbearable situation prolong more than I already had.

I had had enough of it, of this dreadful distance, of this pointless estrangement from the man I had once loved and knew better than I knew myself. No, it was time to make an effort and do something about it before it got out of my hands.

Before something unforgivable happened. Before we burned all the bridges and our love became nothing more than beautiful, fading memories of our past.

I reached out for him and wrapped my arms around him, letting myself drift into a restless slumber until morning came.

If we could get through the next week, with me at the congress in Vienna and him back home, then maybe we could talk and go back to being our former selves, our better selves.

I had to believe in that – in his faithfulness, in the strength of our marriage, in the possibly of recovery. Believe that we could come back from this – because we were Ron and Hermione. This wasn't the first time we fought, and this wouldn't be the last. But we were _us_, and I trusted us to bend and not break.

So I kept telling myself that this was a tough patch – couples went through that all the time. Harry and Ginny had hit a point, a couple of years ago, when they had considered a trial separation. But they had gotten back together after all, and they were even happier than they had been.

Why we wouldn't go past this just as easily as they had done it? I told myself that there was no reason for me not to believe, to hang on, and to hope.

_Just one week._

Just one week, and we would be safe, and whole, and _us _again.

Sometimes, I wish it could've been this easy.

**~*~**

**A.N: **Tah-dah! An Hermione chapter, after a long wait due finals, for all of you who were asking about her! Please, please, tell me what you guys thought - this is a very important chapter to this story, and I'm fairly nervous about it. Hermione seems determined not to go down without a fight for her man, but my inner-Bellatrix tells me it won't be this easy for them, lol. Now feel free to tell just how mean I am on my reviews - and please vote on the poll going on my profile. If you like the next-gen, also check my new fic "_10 Random Facts: Next-Generation Characters_". The expression "lust-hungry cow" belongs to **Your Valensi**, who wrote it to me about Sarah on one of her reviews and I just had to use it for this chapter. Thanks for reading, reviewing and favoring this story, guys!


	7. Promises Like Pie Crust

**Crossroads**

Chapter 6 – Promises Like Pie Crust.

"_Love, love of mine  
won't you lay by my side  
and rest your weary eyes  
before we're out of time?_

_Give me one last kiss  
for soon such distance  
will stretch between our lips,  
now the day's losing light."_

As Much As I Ever Could – City And Colour.

***~***

"I wish you would stay home, Hermione," I told my wife as I watched her finish packing her bags. "We really need to talk, and I don't know… I guess I just have a bad feeling about you being away from home right now."

"I know, Ron, I don't want to go either, but I've got to." She sighed, closed her suitcase and with a swish of her wand, shrunk it to fit inside the pocket of her robes.

"It'll only be for a week. We've been away from each other for longer than that before." Hermione tried to smile, but I could see that she was just as conflicted about having to leave as I was about not wanting her to go. "I know we desperately need to talk about a lot of things, and we will. But I think some time away might do us some good, make us miss each other."

_I miss you every day._

"Okay," I relented. She kissed me softly, her soft lips barely grazing mine. Her body was just within reach, tantalisingly close, yet so far away…

I didn't make a move to hold her longer – closer – and she slipped away from my grasp, like she had done so many times before.

"I love you," she told me earnestly, and the raw honesty in her eyes made me almost smile with relief. My Hermione, the one I loved, was still in there somewhere, and I missed her. I wanted her back. I _needed _her back.

"'Love you too."

"I'll Floo as soon as I get there. If the kids owl, tell them I miss them."

_Do you miss me? At all?_

"I will."

"Okay" – she gave me a long look, then a sad, wistful smile – "I really have to go now."

_Couldn't you just stay with me? _

I wanted to beg her not to go, to bicker with her until she forgot about that fucking convention, about her job, my job – about everything but us.

But, I choked – my lips wouldn't move, and my tongue felt too big in my mouth.

"Okay." I managed a tiny smile. "G'bye."

_Please stay, Hermione._

But she didn't.

"Bye." Her eyes were liquid pools of brown, tears threatening to spill over. It was only for a week, I kept telling myself. She would come back, we would talk, and hopefully things would go back to normal. To the way it had used to be, before we had begun to drift away from each other.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

***~* *~* *~*  
**

"I wish you would stay home, Hermione," Ron told me as I put the last stack of clothes in my suitcase. He continued to point out all the reasons why I shouldn't be leaving, and I felt terrible for having to do so, but I didn't have a choice.

I had made a commitment, taken an oath when I accepted this job, just like he had done with his. I was one of the keynote speakers at this convention, and I couldn't just suddenly drop the whole thing and leave them to deal with it, even though I desperately wanted to stay. But Ron looked conflicted between relief and anxiety, and I couldn't tell if he really wanted me to go or stay.

It was only for a week. One week, and I would come back. I would come back and we would go back to normal again. One week, and we could make this right.

"I know, Ron, I don't want to go either, but I've got to." Didn't he understand that? I hated to break my promises. "It'll be only for a week. We've been away from each other for longer than that before."

I tried to smile, but my face couldn't stand the deception – I was scared of going away, even if it was merely for a week, and Ron knew it.

"I know we desperately need to talk about a lot of things, and we will. But I think some time away might do us some good, make us miss each other."

_Liar. You miss him all the time. But does __he miss__ you?_

His eyes announced his defeat before he had even given in. In fact, he hadn't even put up a fight. My heart constricted in my chest – did Ron not want me to stay? Was he looking forward to being alone, to being away from me?

Didn't he love me anymore?

I wanted to close this distance between us, to give him a searing goodbye kiss so unforgettable and passionate that we both could hang on to the memory over the course of the next few days, when we would be as physically distant as we were emotionally. No, I wanted to kiss him and never let him go.

But I changed my mind at the last minute. Everything in his demeanour told me that this kiss wouldn't be welcomed, that maybe it was too much, too soon.

What had he told me last night?

"_I don't think I can easily get past that.__" _

Tears threatened to spill from my eyes, and I knew I was very close to losing control. That awful fight and the hurtful words we had exchanged kept replaying over and over in my head, as if permanently engrained in my memory.

So, I kissed Ron as if we hadn't shared any kind of intimacy over the past twenty years, as if we meant almost nothing to each other.

I nearly lost it there and wept when he didn't even kiss me back, when he didn't reach out for me, or even as much as try to keep me longer in his arms with him, in our house.

He was still and unmoving. Unforgiving. Distant. He had been this way for a while, as I knew I had.

Didn't he _know_ how hard I was trying?

"I love you," I told him, putting everything in those words, everything I couldn't tell him – how much I missed him, how much I hated it every time he came home late from work, how threatened I felt by Sarah. How I didn't want to lose him - not now, not ever. How I wanted to stay.

How much I wanted him to _ask _me to stay.

"'Love you too."

But he didn't.

"I'll Floo as soon as I get there. If the kids owl, tell them I miss them."

_Do you miss me? At all?_

"I will."

"Okay." I tried to smile again, trying to push past the foreboding feeling of impending disaster. Trying to push past my disappointment when he hadn't asked me to stay, hadn't kissed me like he used to, hadn't been… Ron.

"I really have to go now."

_Ask me to stay, Ron._

"Okay," he told me, and I thought I was _dying._ Why wouldn't he ask me to stay with him? To forget everything about my job and go with him to some place where it would be just us, Ron and Hermione, someplace we could forget about the world, our duties, our promises, and just be _us _again?

I would follow him anywhere – whenever he wanted me to.

Instead, "G'bye" was all he said to me.

"Bye." My eyes filled with unwanted tears, and suddenly, I couldn't stay there anymore, so close and yet so estranged from him. Ron hadn't asked me to stay, so I couldn't be there anymore – there were people counting on me, needing me, like Ron and the kids hadn't for a long time. It felt good to be needed.

So I left, willing myself to stay positive. It was only a week. When I came back, things would be exactly the same.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

***~* *~* *~***

**A.N: **So y'all can thank my Mom for giving me a medicine that not only stopped the symptoms, but it also made me feel a whole lot better! Yay! Don't forget to review, dearest - I get sad whenever someone puts this story on favourites or alert and don't drop a word **;) **


	8. This Unavoidable Thing Between Us

**Crossroads**

**Chapter 7 – This Unavoidable Thing Between Us.**

"_The night is long today; my love for you has changed.  
The night is long today, a hope has been replaced.  
All the steps we take the ones that lead away, a little.  
When we walk away, we only grow more near.  
When we turn away, it all becomes so clear.  
This unavoidable thing, joining us."_

This Unavoidable Thing Between Us – Evermore

***~***

"I'm really glad you're reconsidering your decision, Ron." Harry smiled, satisfied with me reconciling to the idea of leaving the my current position at the Auror Office. "And I'm also very sorry for the way I sprung this idea on you -"

"Chief Potter, I came to tell my Head Auror that I'm accepting the new position he so graciously_ offered _me." The sardonic smile that lately seemed reserved only for him made its way onto my face. "I didn't come here to talk to my mate, Harry, the-boy-who-lived-to-stab-in-the-back. It's for his own sake, as I'm not talking to him in order to avoid punching the daylights out of him and hurting his pretty little face, very much like those Muggle boxers."

Harry had the decency to look positively alarmed.

"Right…" He looked away, embarrassed. "So, when does it seem fit for you to start your new position, Auror Weasley?"

"I'd like to resume my former post for two weeks, in order to finish up all of my cases and tie up any loose ends. After that, I'm guessing I'll be as ready as I'll ever be."

"It's settled, then. On November 9th, you assume the Chief of the Trainee Program position." I nodded and turned to leave his office.

Right before I reached for the doorknob, Harry's strangled voice made me stop dead in my tracks with the bitter taste of remorse in my mouth.

"Ron? We will be okay eventually, right?"

I didn't even have to stop and think about it. Even though I still felt like I could hex him senseless, Harry and I had been brothers for over three decades, and I couldn't simply ignore that, not after all we'd been through.

"We will." We exchanged a brief, tense smile before I walked out of his office and bumped right into Sarah, sending her sprawling across the floor along with what seemed to have been four piles worth of parchment.

"Weasley," she said tersely, acknowledging me with a brief, polite nod.

"Sarah!" My ears went red at the sight of her, and I could feel a blush creeping up my neck to my face. "Let me help you with that." I could easily rearrange her stack of papers with a flick of my wand, but the look on her face stopped me.

"I don't need your help, Weasley," she nearly growled at me. "Why don't you just go away?" Then Sarah looked straight into my eyes proudly, her green ones brimming with barely controlled emotion. Looking at me seemed to take her a lot of effort.

I couldn't say I was surprised by her hostility towards me. That night, after she had told me how she felt about me and asked me to kiss her, I had clumsily pushed her away and mumbled a flimsy apology before stumbling out of her flat I had then proceeded to wander around Muggle London for at least three hours before I'd my wits about me enough to Apparate home without Splinching myself.

"Sarah, I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong idea, or if I –"

"I don't give a rat's arse about what you have to say right now, Ron." Her face was a mask of anger, hurt and misery. "Or about how you feel."

"You've got to understand –"

"I don't have to bloody understand a thing!" she shrieked, attracting the entire office's attention. I scowled at all of them and half-dragged, half-carried a reluctant Sarah to my office.

"Will you just listen to what I have to say?"

"I don't _want_ to!" She was shaking, and I didn't knew if it her trying to control her fury or suppressing an onslaught of sobs.

"You humiliated me!" Sarah was crying now, and she turned her back to me, refusing to let me see or acknowledge her tears. "I, I..." she sniffled, and I had no idea how to react. How to make it better. How to make this a lot less fucked up.

"I practically told you I was in love with you – I asked you kiss me, and you ran away! I thought you felt the same way! When you agreed to come to my flat, I thought that mean that you… that we…" she trailed off, and in despair, sat in one of the chairs in my office and hid her face with her hands.

"Sarah…" I tried to touch her shoulder, to console her somehow, but she flinched away from me. "I'm married… You do know that."

"How could I bloody well forget that?" She glared at me, her anger renewed. "When you walk around with that bloody ring on your finger? When you have _her bloody photograph_ on your desk?"

She shook her head, her long, golden hair catching the light and with that motion, her trademark scent of coconut hit my nostrils and I remembered our proximity that night, how curious I was about whether or not she also tasted like coconut, and if would dare to… But I couldn't.

Because I loved Hermione. I was still in love with wife – and it didn't even matter that she had apparently stopped loving me in return.

"Of course I hadn't forgotten that. But you're… You aren't happy, Ron, and I _know_ I could make you happy." She gave a small, sad smile, and told me with the certainty of the youth, "If only you gave me the chance. Don't you like me?"

"You know I do…" Her smiled broadened. "You know you're beautiful, and you're right, I'm not happy. Not lately." The hope burning in her eyes was too much for me. "But that doesn't make it right, though. It would still be cheating, and I would never do that to Hermione or my family. This is the kind of line I could never, _would_ never cross."

Her smile faltered.

"Why not?"

"Because I love them." And for a thousand different reasons that could serve to exemplify that, but in the end, it all summed up to that one statement. "They're my whole life."

Her eyes filled with tears again, but she still strained to maintain the smile on her face. I could see the struggle she was going through, trying not to show a sign of weakness, trying to be strong, when her heart had been clearly just been broken.

"Fair enough." She got up then, squared her shoulders and performed a beautifying charm on her puffy, swollen eyes and her reddened complexion. "If this is what you really want, I won't say anything more about it, Ron."

"It is."

"Marvellous." But it clearly wasn't. Not to her, and not to me. I hated hurting her, but I would hate betraying Hermione so much more. Things were difficult enough without me adding an affair with my co-worker to our pile of problems.

"From now on, I think it would be better if we're not… as close as we were."

"You don't want people to talk." She uttered this statement with a calm and wistful smile that spoke volumes. For Sarah, this wasn't over. She still had hope.

"Doesn't it matter at all how I feel, Ron?" Her eyes pleaded with me, but I couldn't give her that. If I did, she would still want me. And I couldn't have that – the temptation was too great, and I was sick and tired of being torn between my wife, the woman I loved, the one who kept me at arms length, and the girl who was offering me everything she had, anything I wanted it from her.

"No, not really, Sarah." Her face crumbled for the second time that day, and I had to force myself not to care about this, about her. "They come first."

Even though I felt like I was never on their top ten lists of priorities. Even though it felt fucking great to have someone who wanted me enough, who needed me enough to take whatever I could give them, on my own terms.

Yes, it felt good. But no, it wasn't healthy. Not for me, and especially not for Sarah. I wasn't that selfish – no good could come out of our friendship, even if it remained platonic.

"We should treat each other like mere co-workers." She sighed, and I could tell she was preparing to put up a fight, but I beat her to it. "Am I clear, Coates?"

She glowered at me fiercely.

"Now hand me that file on McNair – I have to finish his imprisonment report."

She didn't move.

"_Now_, Coates."

"Why should I abide to any of your wishes, Ron?" She clearly meant our personal issues, but I wouldn't let her bait me into an endless discussion of what was proper and what wasn't – we had crossed too many lines already.

"Because I'm still your partner and superior, Coates. And because I told you to." White-faced and thin-lipped, she reluctantly handed me the file.

"I hope you don't paper-cut your finger while reading it," she said viciously. "I've heard those kind of wounds can be very painful."

Then she left without looking back at me.

While I was relieved that the awkward exchange had ended, I felt sad and disappointed at the lack of admiration and longing in Sarah's eyes.

It was as if the only person in the world I still counted on for some kind of recognition had decided I wasn't worth it any longer, and the only one who could be blamed for that was me. It was my decision to push her away, after all.

But, even though it was the right decision to make – I was certain about that – there was one thing I couldn't deny: it still made me feel like hell.

***~***

**A.N: No Hermione this chapter, but see? Nothing happened between Sarah and Ron. Yet. Next chapter, the shit hits the fan. Be prepared. Inner Bella sends you guys her love. Don't forget to leave a review - it's polite and very much appreciate it. **

**SHAMELESS PLUG: feel free to check my one-shot called "Atonement" or my next-gen story called "10 Random Facts" - go to my profile, read and review loves =)  
**


	9. Time Is Running Out

**Crossroads**

**Chapter 8 – Time Is Running Out.**

"_So far away from where you are  
These miles have torn us worlds apart  
And I miss you,  
And I wish you were here."_

From Where You Are - Lifehouse

***~* **

**Ron, October 24****th**_**.**_

I rolled over to find a warm body sleeping close to mine. Hermione's. I smiled into my pillow and reached out to touch her, but she disappeared before I could.

She wasn't lying there next to me. I woke up, startled, before I remembered the reason for her absence.

_Vienna. _

_One week. _

I took in a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. I was trying to reassure myself that everything was fine, that everything would be fine once she got back.

I could never sleep well without having her by my side, even before we got married. It was a deeply ingrained habit dating all the way back to those months we had spent chasing Horcruxes across Britain.

Ever since, her steady pattern of breathing had lulled me into sleep, assured me that we were safe. What's more, after we had gotten married and managed to spend nearly every night together, her presence next to me in bed made everything we'd built so far _real_. Itreminded me that we were no longer a couple of terrified, starved adolescents with a burden too heavy and difficult to be carrying around.

Without Hermione around, without her frizzy hair tickling my chin as she shifted in her sleep, I could no longer tell myself those things. She wasn't there, breathing next to me, stealing the covers whenever she got the chance.

She had been gone for four days, in which after fitful nights of sleep, I would wake up to the illusion of having her body next to me.

If this continued on for much longer, I would go insane before the week was out.

I told myself that there was only three more days until she came back home and we could go back to being Ron and Hermione again. Only three more days.

***~***

**Hermione, October 24****th****.**

My knees hurt from the abuse I had been putting them through over the course of that week. Trying to Floo Ron every day had taken its toll on my body as well as my purse. I was sure that when the checkout time came and I closed the hotel bill, those international Floo calls would cost me a great deal of money.

Even though I'd only managed to reach him twice, it was all worth it – to see his eyes light up when I greeted him those two nights, to hear his voice before I fell asleep on an oversized bed. I was restless, because his breathing wasn't there, setting the pace of my heartbeats.

I missed my husband.

To know for sure that he was coming home, and alone, was almost as good as me being there with him.

It was the first time in my life I felt relieved to be wrong – Sarah was no threat to our marriage. Ron wasn't having an affair. He was faithful and sincere, and I had nothing to worry about. After the end of the week, I would go home and we would patch things up. We were already starting to.

Two nights ago, I had gotten a connection to our place and had gotten to tell him about how I'd nearly set the Austrian Minister's beard on fire. After I finished telling him my story, Ron had laughed for what felt like hours, and it was the most light-hearted conversation we'd had in months.

I felt silly to have ever been anxious about this trip in the first place. It seemed like we were getting back on track again.

At least, that was what I was hoping for.

So, once again, I knelt on the cold, marble floor of the fancy hotel room and attempted to call my husband back at our home. I managed to get a connection after only fifteen minutes. His smile was a sight for sore eyes, and I found myself beaming back at him. It felt almost like the real thing, almost like coming home again.

"Hermione," Ron smiled at me. He settled in front of the fireplace in our drawing room. "What part of the Austrian Minister did you set on fire today?"

My heart swelled, and even though my body ached from exhaustion due to the marathon this convention in Vienna was turning out to be, I still spent the next twenty minutes in pointless chitchat with the man I loved.

I dreamt of him that night and when I woke-up the next morning, I could almost feel his body lying close to mine, within reach.

Three more days until I could go back home again.

***~***

**Ron, October 25****th****. **

Two more days and she would be home again.

When lunchtime approached and I no longer had the luxury and comfort of having Sarah pick up my favourite take-out food at The Leaky, I had to swallow my pride and knock on the door to Harry's office. Growing up in a large family like mine, I had never gotten used to eating alone.

"Ron?" he greeted me, clearly surprised.

"I'm heading down for lunch at The Leaky." I couldn't bring myself to actually say the words. If I did, it would mean everything was all right between us when it wasn't. I'd yet to come to terms with Harry's shitty opinion of my work.

"Okay..." He trailed off, not catching up, as always. "Oh." Finally. "Can you give me five minutes? I just need to send this report off and I'll be ready."

I made a noncommittal noise of agreement and shut the door so he could have some privacy. Not that I felt he deserved any consideration on my part when he sure as hell hadn't shown any consideration for me.

It was easier to be angry with Harry than to admit how disappointed I was at how easily he'd set our friendship aside, how little consideration he'd had for me.

A trace of Sarah's coconut smell hit my nostrils and I found my whole body tensing up – I was anything but prepared for dealing with her again after our confrontation.

We had been avoiding being in each other's presence ever since, which was a very difficult thing to do, given that we were partners. Only a little over a week and we would no longer be required to deal with the awkwardness between us.

"Weasley, have you heard?" Sarah rested her shoulder against a potted plant outside Harry's office, determinedly avoiding my gaze.

"A local, last-minute raid came up tonight, and since we're on call, we're going with the new trainees – Hilton and Mulberry."

Terrific. A last-minute raid meant less preparation time, and having newbies on the team as well meant a lot of questions and sloppiness.

"We start prepping promptly at half-past ten."

With that, she pushed past me to let me know just how irritated she still felt.

There was nothing I could've done to pacify her that didn't involve risking my marriage – even though I hated hurting Sarah, I couldn't lose Hermione.

That was what surely would happen if I kept it up with Sarah. There were too many lines already crossed, and many more blurred.

If I overstepped any more than I'd already done, even a little, who knows where I would end up down the road?

I couldn't risk my life, my marriage, my family. Even if every time Sarah looked at me and the admiration and desire I saw in her eyes were no longer there – I ached to see them again, to feel needed again – it wasn't worth it.

Only two more days until Hermione came back to me.

***~***

**Sarah, October 25****th****. **

I shook his unmoving body, struggling to keep it together and not scream myself hoarse by repeating his name over and over again, as if it were a prayer. I felt the tears I'd never realized I was shedding running down my face.

The numbness I'd felt spreading through my body when the unexpected curse hit him in the back was what kept me functioning as I tried every reviving spell we had ever learned during Auror training.

My hands were covered with his blood. His hair was a sticky mess, a darker shade of red than the one he was famous for. His work robes were soaked through.

It was just supposed to be a raid, just like the ones we'd done countless times before.

Hilton wasn't supposed to come down sick with the flu this suddenly, leaving our team odd-numbered and split up for the raid.

I wasn't supposed to be sidetracked while breaking a curse on the first floor of the house. I wasn't supposed to leave Ron with an untested Auror on his hands, one just out of training, to raid the second floor while he was up at the third.

Mulberry wasn't supposed to stumble on some odd piece of furniture lying around. She wasn't supposed to break a lamp and knock over a chair in the process, causing a ruckus that woke up the man living next door.

Mulberry wasn't supposed to have hurt her ankle so badly that she couldn't even stand up straight without help, let alone Apparate.

I wasn't supposed to leave and help her back to Headquarters. I wasn't supposed to leave Ron to lock up the house and return before the owner was aware we had broken in.

The neighbour Mulberry had woken up wasn't supposed to alert said owner. The owner wasn't supposed to return to his house that night and stumble into Ron as he was about to Apparate.

I wasn't supposed to return to the house just as the man I was in love with was about to be hexed. I wasn't supposed to stand there and watch as the curse hit him, the force of it knocking him off his feet, his head hitting the sidewalk with a sickening crack, split open, and his blood gushing out everywhere.

I wasn't supposed to cradle his unmoving form in my arms and try to fix his wounds while praying with everything I had for him to be okay.

The blood was no longer running and the Healers were on their way, but he still wasn't responding to any stimulation. I was scared to death.

I couldn't lose him – not without him knowing how I truly felt about him.

Not without knowing how he tasted, and what his kisses would be like.

Not without having a chance at showing him just how much he meant to me, or how happy I could make him. How good we could be together.

I prayed for the Healers to come faster and help him. I couldn't do any more.

Ron still showed no signs of waking up.

***~***

**A.N: My Inner-Bellatrix sends her love to all of you out there reading and reviewing =)**


	10. Four Stories

**Crossroads**

**Chapter 9 – Four Stories.**

**A.N: **As some of you may be aware for following my livejournal, things have been difficult on my country, especially my city, and this update and possibly the next ones will take a little more time in between than I had originally planned. My prayers rest with the ones that lost someone during this hellish week.

This chapter have a soundtrack, for those interest in it. The songs order are "Slow Show" by The National, "Strange and Beautiful" by Aqualung, "Headlights" by Dispatch, "Spaceship" by The Vines and "Away From Me" by Puddle of Mud.

***~***

**Ronald Weasley Believed In Honesty.**

"_I made a mistake in my life today  
everything I love gets lost in drawers  
I want to start over, I want to be winning  
way out of sync from the beginning__."_

_Slow Show – The National_

_Fuck_,was my first coherent thought.

My head was throbbing, and my body was aching in places I had never known existed. When I made an effort to open my eyes, I almost threw up.

"_Ron!"_

My head pounded from the loudness. The voice was barely recognizable through the midst clouding my mind. I flinched at the volume of it, cursing its owner. I'd never been in so much pain after Apparating.

What had happened to me? It had been years since I last Splinched myself, and if I was correct, the pain hadn't been _everywhere_. Had I been torn in two, this time?

"_Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!_" It was the voice again, and I wasn't very pleased with its reappearance. Something cold touched my chapped lips and a small hand supported my head. If I could, I would've sobbed like a five- year-old from the pain this simple contact caused me.

"Drink, my love. You must be parched."

I sipped carefully on the water, blessing its coolness as it ran down my paper-thin throat. I couldn't have been more grateful to the person who was currently supplying the water, even if they had a very annoying voice.

"More," I croaked as I finally managed to open my eyes. The sight of a blond haired woman with forest-green eyes that were filled with concern knelt beside me.

Sarah.

"What-" I had to take a deep breath before continuing. "What happened?" Even then, my voice was weak and unrecognizable. What _had _happened?

How long had I been out of it? Had I been taken to St. Mungo's again?

_Hermione will kill me_, I thought immediately. She had absolutely hated that hospital, ever since Hugo had fallen severely ill with Dragon pox when he was ten-years-old, and we had spent all our time there.

Sarah began to tear up as she told me the story. Apparently, when Mulberry had inadvertently woken up the next-door neighbour, he'd alerted John Walters, the unassuming suspect of our investigation.

Walters had then Apparated from his beach house in Cornwall, dead-set on catching the burglar inside his London home.

He was supposedly fond of the motto, "hex first, ask questions later", and had put me in a full body-bind when I'd been about to Apparate back to Headquarters.

Unfortunately for me, the force of the hex had hit me too hard, and I'd cracked my head open on the pavement. Sarah had been Apparating back when everything happened. She had hurriedly healed me as best as she could, and alerted the Medi-Wizards on call.

I'd spent the night in St. Mungo's under observation, but hadn't suffered any extensive damage that they could tell until I woke up.

Which I had – groggy, but painfully alive, three hours later.

"They told me you were responsive to their exams, and that it's only a mild concussion with scalp damage from the fall. There's no sign of any injuries, internal or otherwise."

"But I was _so worried_," she fervently whispered to me. "You were laying there, blood gushing out your head, motionless. I thought I'd lost you…" Sarah trailed off, her delicate Irish complexion tinting with red at her admission.

My stomach sunk – I didn't want this. Not this blatant adoration, this fear for my life, the forgiveness that was written all over her face. I needed Sarah to be angry with me. That way, there was less risk of me slipping up and doing the thing I could never forgive myself for – cheating on my wife.

I had always believed in honesty, and truthfully, I was close to giving in – I missed Hermione, and I loved her, but I wasn't sure she loved me anymore.

Having Sarah so near me, seeing her bear her feelings for me with total trust and honesty just made the whole thing a lot more tempting.

"Potter came to see you, and he told me he didn't think it was wise to alert anyone else on your immediate family so as not to alarm them."

"He also brought you three boxes of Chocolate Frogs." Sarah smiled and arched her eyebrow, looking positively wicked. "Isn't he thoughtful? It does make a girl wonder, though... Is there something you would like to share with me, Ron? I'm very good at keeping secrets, you know..."

I scowled and she chuckled – Sarah loved to allude to the stupid rumours about Harry having a secret, longstanding affair with me, his best mate. It drove me mad.

"They alerted _her _too_,_ you know..." Sarah suddenly blurted out, looking away.

"Hermione?" Sarah nodded absent-mindedly, staring at the bare, white walls of my room. "Is she here? She came back?"

Hope washed over me, forceful and burning, almost bringing a smile to my lips.

"She told them she couldn't make it – something about the lack of unavailable Portkeys and International Apparition regulations."

"Oh." That actually sounded a lot more like her. The disappointment still felt bitter and intolerable, though. I couldn't help but think that if Hermione had really wanted to, if she'd really tried, she would've been here with me.

Sarah was here with me instead, and she was saying everything I wanted to hear from Hermione. Sarah had saved my life, and she was clearly in love with me.

She had done so much for me and still asked for nothing in return. Her hand searched for mine, small and comforting.

"I'm sorry," she told me; I could tell she was being honest. She was truly sorry Hermione hadn't been there for me when I had needed her.

She was sorry to be the one that had been there instead, when I so obviously wanted Hermione. I suddenly felt guilty for putting her in that position, even though I had put a stop on things before they could even start.

I was saved from having to come up with a response when a dark-skinned Healer entered the room and started asking a slew of basic questions: my children's names; my birthday; my favourite Quidditch team.

He informed us that because of the concussion, I would need to stay under observation for six more hours before they could release me, and that I should take it easy for the next couple of weeks. He also told us that I might experience some issues with concentration and disorientation, so I should avoid Apparating or taking the Floo by myself. Otherwise, there was no permanent damage.

Sarah breathed out a sigh of relief and caressed the back of my hand with tenderness. I sucked in a breath, suddenly tense at her proximity.

The Healer smiled softly at us, probably thinking Sarah was my dutiful wife. He gave me a pain-relief potion that would make me fall into a dreamless slumber.

I gratefully accepted it, chugged it down, and fell back asleep within seconds.

*~*

It was a quarter-to-five in the morning when I woke up. I was still feeling worse for the wear. My head weighed a ton, and my joints felt stiff from disuse.

I was beginning to feel like I really was too old for those kinds of injuries. Maybe Harry had been right about me moving on from the fieldwork, on to something that demanded a lot less of my body.

Sarah excused herself while I changed from the flimsy hospital gown into my work robes. The fabric looked much more worn out than it had before. I figured it was because they'd had to Scourgify the blood out of it more than once.

Once I was ready, the Healer handed Sarah the release papers, some pamphlets with information about head injuries, and two vials of pain-relief potion. He once again advised me against Apparating or Flooing by myself.

It was mid-morning when we stepped outside St. Mungo's, and Sarah asked me if I wanted to have a late breakfast at The Leaky before I went home. I agreed, and she held her hand out for the side-along Apparition. Hannah greeted us politely before sending one of her servers to our table as the crowd died down.

We ate quickly. Our talk was subdued, as we were both exhausted from the day's events. Sarah offered to help me Apparate home, and I decided to take her up on her offer – there was no one else volunteering for the job, anyway.

As we walked down Diagon Alley's cobblestone path to the nearest Apparation point, near The Prophet's building, Sarah stumbled. Her right foot had caught on one of the cobblestones, and I reached for Sarah at the last possible second, catching her by the elbow and helping her regain her balance.

She smiled nervously and looked up at me. A rebellious strand of her curly blond hair fell on her eyes, and I automatically tucked it behind her ear.

Sarah sighed and moved closer, her green eyes darkening with the proximity of our bodies. I felt myself holding my breath, the coconut-ish smell of her hair invading my senses. It was making me feel dizzy and confused, both anticipating and dreading what could happen if one of us took a chance.

I should have stepped away, but I honestly couldn't find the strength to react as I was supposed to, as I should have done.

Instead, I looked into her eyes and the guileless longing I saw in there made my head spin. I was tired of fighting this attraction, tired of denying Sarah. She had given me everything, when Hermione was giving me nothing.

Blood rushed in my ears, and my heart hammered it my chest like a caged animal wanting to break out. I hadn't felt this alive in years. I'd forgotten how good it felt. I stood still and braced myself for the consequences.

***~***

**Sarah Coates Believed In Action.**

"_I've been watching your world from afar; I've been trying to be where you are,_

_And I've been secretly falling apart, unseen..._

_I'll put a spell on you, you'll fall asleep, and I'll put a spell on you._

_And when I wake you, I'll be the first thing you'll see,_

_And you'll realize that you love me."_

_Strange and Beautiful – Aqualung_

There are very few moments in your life on which you can look back and point out the moment everything changed. As those moments occur, you have no idea of the impact they will have on your future. It's only in hindsight that you realize how truly pivotal they were.

I've had one of those moments. I didn't know it then, but from the first time I laid my eyes on Ronald Weasley, nothing had been the same. From the moment he had stumbled away from the mess that was his desk and gingerly stretched out his hand as Potter introduced me as his new partner, I was a goner.

I fell hard and fast for him in that moment, and everything had changed.

I fell for the way his lips curved up in a sensual, boyish smile; for the way the sunlight hit his eyes, made of the most amazing shade of blue I'd ever seen; for the endearing way his fringe fell over those unforgettable eyes. I fell for those big, capable hands, calloused and masculine yet so soft and warm.

Everything changed with the acknowledgment of the little things that made him who he was, just like everything was changing at that moment. Our bodies were touching, so close, his peppermint breath ghosting across my face, his clear-blue eyes burning as much as mine. He desired me as much as I needed him.

I knew it, and every cell on my body screamed for me to take action. I knew because of the way he was still holding my elbow, the way he had tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. The tension between us was palpable, my wanting undeniable, and he was finally giving me the green light.

And even though I knew that he was married, that he was _hers_, and that I would most likely hate myself for doing the most selfish, stupid thing I could've ever done, I simply couldn't help myself.

I would not let this chance slip by, not when I had always believed in action. I'd been waiting for an opportunity like this for a long time, ever since he first smiled at me. I felt my heart hammering wildly on my chest.

I reached for him, bracing myself for the consequences.

I couldn't help myself because I loved him. Merlin, I _loved _him. In a way that burned, ached, hurt and consumed every possible thought of common sense, of decency, of what was right. Everything but this love ceased to exist. Whenever he was around, I couldn't think straight.

I took one step closer, the space between us inexistent, and brought his lips down to mine. I put all the yearning and the adoration I felt for him in the kiss, disregarding all the things I knew I should have been taking into consideration.

_He doesn't love me__,_ I tried to reason with myself.

_He could, if he wasn't so scared, _my heart told me.

_He's married._

_He's miserable, unhappy. She'll never love him like __he__ deserves to be loved._

_He'll never leave her._

_I have to take a chance._

I would burn, tingle, and combust for the short seconds the kiss lasted before he gently pushed me away, from him. He would push away from everything I had offer, all the things _she_ wasn't giving him. Away from the things he was scared of wanting with me, but desperately needed from _her_, the one he had chosen over me.

Love. Acceptance. Companionship. Respect. Desire.

We sprung apart when reality came crashing down around me unexpectedly when the sound of a picture being taken snapped in the background and someone Apparating immediately away, without giving Ron the chance to pull away from the kiss, from me, like he had done so many times before.

And everything changed again.

***~***

**Agatha Winchcombe Believed In Timing.**

"_Headlights._

_Highways._

_Your life collides with mine."_

_Headlights – Dispatch_

When your single, Muggle mother with an extremely small income, raises you and you live in near poverty, something inside you pushes you to overcome the difficulties and reach for greatness in any shape or form you can.

When I received my first Hogwarts letter and understood why I'd never fit in with the Muggles, I'd made a promise to myself. I would never hold back from what I wanted, from what could give me an edge in this competitive world, even if I displeased some people or stepped on their toes on my way.

Life taught me to survive – and I wasn't ashamed of being ambitious. If I didn't look after myself, then who would? I didn't have my mother to protect me, not in this world. I had to carve a way for myself, and I was not fazed by it.

Whenever an opportunity arouse, I took it. Because of it, I ended up as the Head Girl in my year, with job offers waiting for me as soon as I finished sitting my NEWTs. My mum had always told me it was because I was lucky, but I didn't believe in luck. For me, timing was the key.

If I hadn't walked in on the sixth-year Simon Garrison trying to molest a second-year girl behind a tapestry when I was in fourth year, I wouldn't have had to nearly hex the bollocks off him. I wouldn't have attracted the attention of the caretaker and my Charms teacher, and I wouldn't have been made Prefect on the next year. If I hadn't decided to buy school supplies on the last day of Easter break in my sixth year, I wouldn't have stumbled upon an internship advertisement for the Prophet over the upcoming summer.

If I hadn't stepped in and volunteered for the job, I probably would never have gotten an offer to work as a full-time reporter after graduation. If I hadn't had Camilla Ryan as my mentor during my internship there, I would have never acquired the habit of always having a camera on me at all times, like she always had.

_You never know when you might stumble __across__ a story_, _Agatha, __and then you'll have proof._ Her words had stuck with me ever since, and at that moment, seven years later, I was about to become eternally grateful for them.

Standing in front of me, completely oblivious to my presence, was the chance of a lifetime – something that could make or break my career as a journalist.

A story, and a bloody good one at that.

Even if it weren't for the red hair, I would most certainly remember him – I had gone with school with his children, just a couple of years younger than me. I didn't recognize the blond girl looking at him all doe-eyed, though. She most certainly wasn't his wife, and she was obviously about to kiss him.

My camera was heavy in my bag, and my hands itched to reach out and just get this over with, before the moment was over. Before I had lost the opportunity.

It was the first time I had hesitated over taking a chance. I was well aware of what the photograph I was torn over taking would represent for the Wizarding World, and how it could affect Ronald Weasley's life.

He tucked a strand of hair behind the girl's ear, and I suddenly made my decision. It was stupid of me to waver in my decision, really. I had never not taken a chance in my life, and I wasn't about to start now. Moral ethics was purely a social convention, written in shades of grey, if one were to stop and analyze it.

It would be akin to committing career suicide, had I walked away from this story. If I didn't publish it, somebody would, and I would never forgive myself for it.

The way that I saw it, it wasn't luck that made me wake up a little later than usual that Thursday, so that I had to stay longer before I left for a late breakfast.

All that had landed me on the Apparition point just beside The Prophet at that moment, when there was no one else on the otherwise busy street.

It was all about timing, really.

***~***

**Hermione Weasley Believed In Evidence.**

"_Now I sit here by myself, and I think you've found somebody else._

_How could you let them take you away from me?_

_There's somebody else..."_

_Away From Me – Puddle Of Mud_

As I stepped outside the London office of the Department of International Transportation, I was about to throttle any employee of that dreadful place if they as much dared to breathe in my direction.

Thanks to them, it had taken me twenty-eight hours to make it back to England, after countless forms I'd had to fill out in order to request emergency Portkeys from one country to the next. All that, just so that I could come back home a day early and take care of my husband.

When my secretary interrupted one of the meetings I was attending at the Vienna Ministry, saying it was an important matter, I had felt my blood run cold. My thoughts had immediately gone to the kids, but it turned out I was wrong.

Ron had been hurt again while out on a raid. His last one, if I had any say in it.

The Healer had informed me that Ron, hit by a full body-bind, fell and hit the pavement splitting his head open and going unconscious in the process. He told me he had yet to wake up, and that they didn't know how extensive the damage had been. They did know that it apparently wouldn't result in any brain damage.

He had tried to assure me that there was no immediate danger and Ron doing as well as could be expected, but the words "hurt", "brain damage" and "unconscious" kept swimming around in my head.

My Ron was lying in a hospital bed by himself, wounded and alone, and I wasn't there. I couldn't bear it. Vienna would have to do without me – there wasn't any way I would leave him to fend for himself, or that I wouldn't be standing there beside him when he woke up.

I had told the Healer I would be there as soon as I could, and started packing. Unfortunately, the incompetence of the workforce in the European magical community was astounding, and I'd been held back several times before I could make it here. Even though Ron had already been released from the hospital and sent home, as I'd been told, I'd still made it.

Ron would just have to understand I'd tried as hard as I could, but some things were out of my control. I was prepared to make him understand that, and I was prepared to talk him into taking George's longstanding offer of an equal partnership of the Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes enterprise.

I was terrified of losing him, and this last scare had only helped me realize just how much I couldn't live without him – there was no need for him to be putting his life at stake on a daily basis anymore.

He'd saved people and proven himself a million times over. It was time for him to sit back and enjoy the peace he'd helped create and maintain. Even if it took me all night, I would make him see just how interesting George's offer could be, and what it would mean for us as a couple – no more raids or missions on a weekly basis. No more injuries or narrow escapes during missions.

It would also mean more time at home with his family. We would need that in order to fix what was wrong between us. Once I'd explained it to him like this, he would relent. In our last conversation, we had both agreed to try harder – I would cut back my hours at the office, and he would work full-time at WWW.

I stepped outside on a beautiful Friday morning to find Diagon Alley overflowing with people shopping for Halloween, even at that early hour.

As I crossed the street, people kept pointing and staring at me, whispering behind their hands. Some had expressions of pity on their faces, other had eyes filled with disapproval. I was flabbergasted – what I was supposed to make of this?

The stares were so bothersome that I began to feel claustrophobic. With hopes of enlightenment, I walked briskly to the Wheezes store. I was even more disturbed when I found the closed sign hanging from the door.

There was no alternative. With my stomach tied in knots, I went straight to the Leaky, hoping that Hannah could explain to me what I'd apparently missed during my absence. The pub more crowded and noisy than the streets, with all the breakfast rush, but silence descended immediately upon my arrival.

I shivered – that was a terrible sign. I was more confused and scared than I'd been for a long, long time. Hannah spotted me and rushed over, her eyes filled with tears. Her pretty face was a mask of compassion.

She dragged me to her private office on the first floor without letting me as much as utter a "hello". As soon as she shut the door, effectively barricading us in, she hugged me hard and muttered nonsense in my hair.

"Hannah!" I was getting annoyed – it had never sat well with me being out of the loop on anything, especially when it was something that concerned me. "I just came back from Vienna and the Wheezes' is closed, and everyone's acting really strangely, pointing and whispering, and just being downright rude..."

Hannah looked me straight in the eye, her blue ones filled with pity and ruefulness. I got even more nervous.

"_What happened?"_ Was it Ron? My children? I felt weak, about to pass out.

"I'm so sorry, Hermione..." she told me as she handed me the piece of paper that would forever change my life. Hannah slipped away from her office and left me alone so that I could have a semblance of privacy.

Staring back at me from the front page of today's Prophet was a blow-up photo of my husband looking at a woman that wasn't me with much more passion and interest that he'd shown in me in a long time.

My blood ran cold when the object of his scrutiny reached out and closed the distance between them in the middle of Diagon Alley, in broad daylight.

The headline screamed for my attention. "Ron Weasley and Sarah Coates Expose Their Secret Relationship to the World – is the Golden Trio Breaking Up?"

I didn't want to believe it, but the evidence of my husband's affair was staring straight at me, replaying itself over and over again in the picture. Ron's lips were on hers, crashing, tasting and devouring. Their bodies were entwined as close as humanly possible, touching every inch of each other, maybe hungry for more.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see straight. I was blind and suffocating. Ron kept kissing Sarah on the paper, but doing much more than that in my mind.

I ran to Hannah's loo with tears stinging my eyes, my skin crawling with anger and betrayal. I viciously heaved the contents of my stomach into the sink, and the offensive piece of paper fell on the floor and lay there, forgotten.

***~***

**Inner-Bellatrix is currently M.I.A due RL issues, but I would still love some reviews ;)  
**


	11. Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You

**Crossroads**

**Chapter 10 – Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You.**

"_For a while I sat there staring at her photograph  
For a while I cried and tried not to make a scene  
There was a time when we were young  
I used to make her laugh  
But life is long, my love has gone away from me__."_

**Gone Away From Me – Ray LaMontagne.**

***~***

He'd searched for her everywhere – in her parents' house, in the places he knew she usually went, in her favourite Muggle library…

He had to explain that he hadn't kissed Sarah, even though he hadn't stopped her either. He had to tell her how guilty he felt, how sorry he was, how much he loved her, and only her. He had to make her see, and he didn't care if he had to beg for her to believe him. He couldn't bear to think he could lose her forever.

He would do anything_._

When he finally made it home, her clothes' drawers were empty.

***~***

She folded the red skirt he'd loved so much on her (the same one she'd worn last Valentine's Day when he'd come home so late from the office she'd fallen asleep on the living room) and put it in her suitcase. Her small hands were shaking as the clothes kept piling up inside her bag – skirt, robes, underwear.

She resolutely emptied her drawers, sorting which books she would take with her and which ones she would come back later to get.

She tied and un-tied her curly hair into a bun eleven times.

She gave their house one long, last look and Apparated away. She couldn't stand being there, not without wondering if hehad brought that woman there, without going crazy wondering if and what had or hadn't happened.

***~***

He sat very still on their bed, staring at the walls so as to avoid looking at the emptiness in their wardrobe. The fight was gone from him, and all he could do was listen to the silence she'd left behind, wishing he could take everything back.

***~***

Sarah groaned when yet another reporter knocked on her door, trying to get her to talk about her sordid affair with one of the heroes of the Golden Trio.

Not that she'd had anything of the kind with him, but this apparently didn't matter to any of them. The reporters were just a bunch of hyenas after the carnage and destruction that her impulsive kiss with Ron had left in its wake.

Sarah hadn't signed up for this.

When she'd kissed Ron, she'd had no idea that a stupid, self-important reporter would be standing nearby. Sarah had never thought that someone would be there, witnessing the whole thing, and that they would snap a picture of it and plaster on the front page of Britain's most-read daily journal.

Sarah's roommate, Antonia Carmichael, stood in front of her bed, staring at her. She was probably trying to think of something to say to make her feel better.

"Oh, puppet," Antonia cooed as she climbed into Sarah's bed.

She and Antonia had been best friends since they were six or seven, and they were as close as sisters, but right now, she just wanted to be left alone.

"I'm so sorry, but you have to know that what you did was incredibly stupid."

Sarah couldn't help it – she started to cry.

"I love him," she choked out between sobs. "But now he hates me, and he won't answer the Floo when I call him, and he's hurting, and I can't even…"

"I know, I know." Antonia rubbed circles on Sarah's lower back. "But you know what you have to do, don't you?"

Sarah frowned, then nodded. It would be anything but pleasant, but she had to own up to her mistakes. Her mother hadn't raised her to hide when things got difficult. Even though she had made a huge error in judgment, Sarah knew this was one she just had to fix, even though it would possibly kill her in the process.

"Can we just stay here for a little while?" Antonia chuckled a little and hit her playfully on the shoulder. "I'm not-"

"Ready, I know," Antonia said. Sarah smiled at Antonia meekly, filled with appreciation. Friends like her didn't come around often, and s had been the only sane thing in her life ever since she'd found out she was a witch. The fact that their close friendship remained as strong as ever spoke volumes.

"Just for a little while."

"Okay," Sarah agreed gratefully. She closed her eyes and pretended for the last time that nothing had changed. That Ron didn't hate her, that the entire country didn't think of her as a cheater and a home wrecker, and that she didn't just have her heart broken.

***~***

Ron was comfortable there. If he didn't move, if he barely breathed, if he didn't open his eyes, he wouldn't have to remember anything that had happened.

If he moved as little as possible, he wouldn't have to get up and go on about his life as if things hadn't changed. He could pretend that they were just the same.

If he didn't acknowledge the new morning, he wouldn't have to remember how bad things were, or how badly he'd fucked up his own life.

So he lay as still as humanly possible, not moving an inch.

***~***

It had been three days, fourteen hours, forty-three minutes and twenty-seven seconds since Hermione had seen Ron. Even then, it had been on a piece of paper.

Kissing another woman.

"Hermione." The voice of the persistent person that had been knocking on the oak door of her room for the past two days was muffled, but still audible. "Please, open this door, Hermione. It's been three days, and you need to come home."

This time it was Harry. Ginny, Neville, Luna and who-knows-who-else kept trying to convince her to come out of the safe haven that was the room Hannah had given her at the Leaky Cauldron since… since she had found out about Ron.

Hermione still couldn't quite believe it. Ron was cheating on her. Ron had been with someone else. She couldn't even think about that without feeling sick to her stomach. She'd lost count of how many times she had gagged over the course of the past days.

Whenever she remembered the picture with Ron kissing Sarah, or whenever she imagined him doing… things to her, Hermione had to run to the loo.

"Please, Hermione." Why wouldn't Harry just leave her the hell alone? He obviously didn't get the message that she wasn't in the mood to talk. "You need to come out, come home, talk to Ron. He's… I'm afraid he'll do something stupid."

More stupid than kissing his lover in broad daylight, in the middle of the street? Why should Hermione care about what happened to him?

He sure as hell didn't care about her.

"Hermione!" The urgency in Harry's voice didn't move her a bit. Idly, she picked up her wand and aimed yet another _Silencio_ spell at the door, temporarily blocking out the voices and sounds that kept reminding her of Ron's betrayal.

If she couldn't hear them, if she just stayed in her room, very quiet and still, then she wouldn't have to think about him_, _or about her_. _At all.

If she couldn't hear the voices, then it would be as if nothing had ever happened.

***~***

The pillows still smelled like her, and after using the shampoo bottle that was in their bathroom to wash his hair, he smelled like her as well.

It felt good, almost as if they just had had sex, and he smelled of her while she smelled like him. If felt like she had never left him.

Ron closed his eyes and immersed himself into darkness again.

***~***

Hugo nervously paced back and forth at the airport. Rose's idea to use Muggle transportation to get home so as not to attract more attention to their family and put the reporters on their tails was brilliant. However, Hugo didn't care much for all the delayed flights and the children running around the lobby while their flustered parents kept chasing after them.

A flop of dark-red hair attracted his attention, and Hugo walked up to his sister.

Rose smiled when she spotted him and ran into his waiting arms. She was much smaller than his six-foot-four frame, her head barely reaching his shoulders. She looked more like his younger sister than his elder one.

When they broke apart, Rose looked him up and down, frowning.

"You look much thinner than before, Hughes."

He usually hated when she used his childhood pet name, but somehow he didn't feel like calling her on it. He settled for just rolling his eyes.

"Haven't you been eating?"

"Until I nearly burst out of my seams," he told her. He mussed up her hair, which Hugo knew just how much she hated.

"How bad are things?" Rosie was never one to dance around the subject.

Hugo just shook his head and picked up her luggage as if it weighed nothing. "Fucked up."

Rose frowned again. "Language," she admonished half-heartily.

Hugo had to laugh. His sister had the mouth of a sailor, yet she acted all prim and proper when he swore.

"Uncle Harry had me pulled out of school because of the rumours," Hugo said as they entered the parking lot, "Mum's holed up in a room at The Leaky, and Dad isn't talking, eating or moving. He just lies there in bed, trying not to breathe."

Rose sucked in a deep breath and ran her hands through her hair. "That bad, then."

He nodded – there were no words.

"Uncle Harry is going bonkers with this thing. The reporters won't leave us alone, and it's getting scary. Mum refuses to talk to anyone, and the only reason we know she's still alive and in her room is because occasionally someone hears her dashing off to the bathroom to heave her guts out."

"Well, fuck!" Rose said, and Hugo had to smile. What other word was there that could describe their situation? "Sodding bloody hell_."_

"Language, Rosie." She scowled at him. "So who's tackling whom first?"

"I take Dad and you take Mum?" she suggested.

Hugo figured they should save the good guns for later, so he shook his head.

"Yes, you're right," Rose agreed. "You deal with Dad right now and I'll try to talk to Mum. Worse comes to worst, we bring Grandma Molly and Grandma Anne with us.

"Don't worry, Hughes," Rose told him as she stole the car's keys, smirking. She never let him drive. "We'll sort them out and put them back together." She sounded so sure that Hugo almost believed her.

"If anyone can make them see reason, it's us," Rose said, the finality in her tone giving Hugo a little hope. Maybe they could talk some sense into their parents after all.

***~***

"You can't put it off for much longer," Antonia told Sarah as the blond girl tried to come up with reasons not to do what she already knew she had to.

"But what if I –"

"No!" Her voice had such finality in it that it made Sarah shiver. But of course Antonia was right – she always was. "Stop acting like a child."

But how was Sarah supposed to do something like that?

She wasn't brave like her best friend, and she wasn't quite ready to let Ron go, like she was supposed to.

"You broke a family."

The reality of her friend's words hit her full-force, making Sarah's head spin. This was never truly her intention. She wanted Ron with an intensity that hurt, but she'd never given his family much thought.

"You went after what you wanted, and I love that about you, but you have to be careful about other people's feelings and lives."

Sarah's eyes filled with tears – how incredibly selfish had she been?

"A family is a sacred thing, Sarah, and you of all people should know that. You need think things through, but you didn't, you just acted impulsively and tore them apart."

"You have to acknowledge that because you've broken them, you're the one who has to put them back together."

It didn't matter how much she regretted it or wished she could take it back. Sarah was seeing things clearly for the first time. She had to make things right again, for the man she loved and for the woman he loved, even if meant stepping back and giving him up for good.

Antonia was staring down at her earnestly, her face solemn. "Now will you just get off your arse and do what I told you to?"

So, Sarah did.

***~***

Ron more sensed than heard the doorbell ringing. He groaned and silently willed whoever it was to go away. He was trying not to exist, for fuck's sake.

After five minutes, the person gave up. Ron wished they would just crawl into a hole and leave him the bloody hell alone.

Hermione had left him.

His children probably hated him.

He didn't have anything anymore, all because he'd been wrong, passive, and downright idiotic. He'd lost _everything_, and it was entirely his own bloody fault.

He was the one who had led Sarah on, the one who had stood still while she'd kissed him in the middle of the street.

He was the one who had basically said "to hell with the consequences", and look where it had gotten him – the only things that mattered in his life weren't there anymore.

He'd no one to blame but himself.

Suddenly, two shadows entered his room and stood there in menacing silence. Ron was shocked enough to forget the promise he'd made to himself to stop being and blinked dozily up at them.

"Get up," the black-haired one told him. "We're not letting you do this anymore, it's fucking pathetic. Get up _right now._"

If Ron had been able to feel anything, he would have found this situation hilarious. Was _he_ really trying to intimidate him? Then again, Ron didn't find anything amusing, anymore. He wasn't even sure he was still able to feel_._

"Or what?" he asked, merely out of politeness than anything resembling curiosity. Just sitting in silence apparently wasn't an option to the two men looking at him with something akin to both pity and fury in their eyes.

"Don't test me," was the response, and Ron almost felt the urge to laugh.

"You can't just lie there and do nothing!" the brown-haired one exploded, his eyes filling with unwanted tears. "You have to get Mum back. You've got to work it out, Dad, or otherwise I'll..." His chin trembled just like it had when he was little and about to burst into tears when his cousins teased him. "Or otherwise I'll never forgive you for doing this to our family."

And everything came crashing down on him. Yes, he had lost everything, yes, she'd left him. But there was still hope, and he would have to somehow make things right. Not only for himself, but for his children as well.

"Hugo..." He trailed off, because he had no idea what to say to his son.

"Just get up," Harry growled at him. He shoved a clean towel in Ron's hands before stalking out of the room to raid the fridge, probably looking for some hard liquor.

This was going to be a long night.

***~* **

Hermione couldn't be in this room anymore – it smelled like vomit and betrayal, like tears and abandonment. It smelled like failure.

However, she didn't have anywhere else to go. Every friend she had in this world related back to him_, _and she couldn't bear to be reminded of him.

She put on the short, yellow dress she had bought in Vienna to surprise him with, and did her hair and make-up. When Hermione saw her reflection in the mirror, she felt like someone else. She looked exactly the opposite of whom she wanted to be.

She clutched her purse and wand close to her body and Apparated to some place where no one would recognize her.

That night, she wouldn't be Hermione Weasley, the wronged wife, the accomplished War hero, part of the Golden Trio, mother of Hugo and Rose.

Tonight, she would just _be._

***~***_  
_

**A.N: **As some of you may or may not know, this was a very difficult chapter for me. The first version of it was already written long before I had started posting this story, as most of its chapters, but along the way, something about it made me question some parts of the plot I had in my mind. For a while, I knew I had to change it, but I had not idea where or how to do it, and if or how it could affect the outcome of the story. I strugled greatly with this chapters, as the latter ones, and if it weren't for the support of some friends that cheered, asked, suggested and held my hand through the process, I wouldn't have made it.

For a while I was so blocked and fed up with trying to work around the things that had been bothering me that I was on the verge of putting this story on indertemined hiatus until I could figure it out, but thankfully, that didn't happened, and it was because of them. Thank you, all of you, for your patience and kindness towards me. Lisa, my beta and friend, for putting up with my longs rants, frustated e-mails, hair-tearing, nail-bitting, self-doubt moments - I wouldn't have continued to insist on this without your unwavering support. Melakem, Silvietta, Nellie, Bealen, Gilraen, Your Valensi, Alquimista, and so many more people whose reviews brightened my day and gave me the determination I needed to continue with this story - thank you =)

**Shameless Plug: **Ron/Hermione lovers, you might want to check out my new one-shot about them, called _"Ephemeral"_. Angst-lovers, you might want to check my George/Angeline story called "_About A Boy, About A Girl", _and for the next-gen fans out there, there's my new drabble called "_Six Freckles On Her Shoulder" _and Louis' chapter on "_10 Random Facts"_.


	12. Your Cheating Heart

**Crossroads**

**Chapter 11 – Your Cheating Heart.**

"_There's nothing I can say__  
__Nothing I can do__  
__To bring you back again_

_This of life I know is true__  
__It's all a falling through__  
__And so I reach for you_

_Why, why did you go, why did you go away?__"_

A Falling Through – Ray LaMontagne

***~***

When I entered the seedy Muggle bar, I immediately felt the strong urge to go back. Every instinct of mine was on high alert, but if I did went back, where would I go? Everything I had, everyone I knew, all still led back to _him._

I sat on a stool and ordered the strongest liquor they had.

I was determined to forget everything about _him – _to forget how his kisses felt, how much I adored running my hands through his exquisite hair, or how he'd stomped all over my heart and humiliated me for the whole world to see.

I took a shot of bourbon and hiccupped, unused to its taste. The second one went down smoother, and the third one almost didn't burn my throat at all.

My vision was getting hazier by the second, as I'd never been much of a drinker. I kept going, though, until I could barely see straight, let alone feel anything.

A cold, calloused hand on my shoulder made my heart race. _Ron_, my traitorous mind wished. It wasn't him, though. It was someone else entirely, but the sight of the boy – _man –_ I hadn't seen in so many years pleased me.

I smiled lazily, feeling my body warm up when he responded. His arrogant smile was different enough from the lopsided one I loved to be just what I wanted.

This was it – this was my chance to hurt Ron as badly as he'd hurt me.

***~***

"I didn't cheat on her," I slurred, trying to coordinate my thoughts. "It was only one kiss – one stupid, bloody kiss. I didn't even kiss Sarah back."

Harry sighed and refilled our glasses. Hugo had long since passed out on the couch, not used to drinking anything but Butterbeer.

"I know, mate."

"How could she believe that story so easily, and without even _asking _me?"

"There was a picture," he pointed out.

"Still," I mumbled stubbornly, "she could've at least set those birds of hers on me – just hexed me or something. It's better than just turning her back on us after, what? Twenty-fucking-four years of marriage!"

"I know, mate." Harry sipped on his Firewhiskey, in no hurry to finish it. "But you didn't exactly seek her out, did you?"

"The bloody hell I didn't!" Hugo shifted on the sofa, and I lowered my voice. "I looked for her everywhere, wanting to explain. When I got back home, she had just packed up and left, Harry! Who the bloody hell does that after twenty-fucking-four years together?"

"Well, she was really upset," Harry said, probably thinking he was being helpful.

I glared at Harry's suddenly ugly face, and he sighed.

"Fine, I will just sit in silence on the floor and stare at my drink."

The fireplace suddenly came alive, and my daughter stumbled out of it in a rush of soot and red hair, coughing like Auntie Muriel in her last days.

"_Rosie?__"_ She had come back from Florence? When? "What are you –?"

"Mum's left her room at The Leaky," she managed to choke out between coughs, "and nobody knows where the fuck she went." She threw herself on the part of the couch on which Hugo wasn't currently lying. "You're the Auror; you've got to find her."

"Now, is that Firewhiskey?" She snatched Harry's glass away from him and gulped down the remains before pouring herself some more. "So, Dad. How's the mistress?"

***~***

The dingy pub looked a lot classier under the effects of the bourbon we'd been drinking for an hour now. My company let out a throaty laugh when I pointed this out, and his hand inconspicuously found its way to rest on my thigh.

It felt all kinds of wrong, but it didn't bother me as much as it should have. It felt completely different from when Ron touched me, and this was exactly what I was looking for – to be as far away from my cheating husband as possible.

That knowledge alone made me desire this man even more. Anything and everything that made me forget about Ron that night was welcomed.

His eyes looked darker in the dim light of the pub, and his thin lips curled into a smirk when his hand hitched even higher on my leg, almost under the hem of my yellow dress. I felt almost disconnected from my own body.

The urge to move his hand away was strong, and I had to remind myself that if Ron could do it, had done it, why shouldn't I be able to pay him back in kind?

"Let's go someplace less public," he whispered against my ear, and we walked hand-in-hand to the alley behind the Muggle bar.

I Apparated us straight to the hallway outside my room at The Leaky, and his mouth was against mine in a second. My whole body went rigid, and even though my mind screamed, "Kiss him back, you fool!" my body said no.

I could feel the nausea threatening to surface again as his tongue probed against my closed lips, demanding access. I tried to convince myself that I needed more time to adjust to the feel of this man, to repress the comparisons I was subconsciously making between him and Ron, the dread churning in my stomach.

"Wait," I said, fumbling in my bag for my room key. "Not here; the owner is a friend of mine. Let's take this inside."

He growled against the skin of my collarbone and nipped lightly at it.

I opened the door and stepped inside, dragging him with me. _She_ was sitting on the chair by the fireplace and was staring back at us, completely shell-shocked.

I felt breathless, as though all the oxygen had been suddenly squeezed from my lungs.

"I hope you don't mind," she'd said, "but Mrs. Longbottom let me in."

"Who are you?" he asked her, but I answered his question instead.

"Sarah Coates."

***~***

"Ginny!" Harry was on his knees with his head in my fireplace, trying to contact his wife to ask her about mine. I paced my drawing room while Rosie played with the amber liquid in her glass, as if she were completely fascinated by it.

My little girl was completely smashed.

One more shining moment to add to my growing list of failures.

"You shouldn't drink," I warned her gloomily, without any real authority behind it. With the way this night was turning out, even if I didn't drink, I would take it up in a heartbeat.

"And you shouldn't kiss your co-worker when you're married," she shot back. The sweetness of her tone was deceiving, but her smile was warm enough that I could tell she didn't really mean it to hurt to me. It still did, though. "None of us are doing what we're supposed to, are we, Dad?"

Rosie - 1, Dad - 0.

"Rose, stop abusing your father," Harry automatically scolded her, while Ginny still failed to wake up and answer her bloody Floo. I was anxious and tired of this situation, sick of not being able to see and talk to Hermione.

I had to fix this – I had to find her and make her see reason. Then I would grovel for as long as it took for her to forgive me.

***~***

After I sent him away, we sat in stony silence for what felt like years. Neither of us really knew each other and yet we were as intimate as two people could be in our situation.

She'd kissed my husband, and she had seen me with another man in my room.

"How long has this been going on?" she asked, and I felt fury engulfing me, hot and fast. How dare she ask me that, when she'd been after Ron for Merlin-knew-how-long? "This might make my coming here entirely pointless."

She was clearly asking me to _Avada Kedavra_ the life out of her.

"You've got some nerve, girl," I began, my voice icy and distant. I felt like adding a "slag" somewhere in there but decided against it. She didn't deserve my tears or my anger – just my loathing. "You shag my husband and then come here to tell me off for something you have absolutely no clue about, you little –"

"Hermione," she interrupted, before I could finish insulting her. "I'm not judging you; I know I don't have any right to. I just need to know if it's more of a permanent thing, or if it's just you lashing out at Ron."

"That's none of your business."

The bitch had the guts to smile at me patronizingly. I decided to _Crucio_ her first, then kill her later. Maybe insert a punch here and there, just to make sure.

"Fine," she bit out. "I don't really like you, and you really loathe me, but there's something you need to know." She suddenly looked nervous, and I was taken aback by the vulnerability in her eyes, something that made her look both pretty and in need of protection. I could see Ron falling for that, and I hated them both even more for it. Her for being the cause, him for being the patsy.

"Ron – he never cheated on you," she spat bluntly, and I couldn't breathe again.

Nothing I thought I knew was real.

***~***

"I'm done with waiting," I informed Harry as I made my decision to chase Hermione down to the depths of hell if I meant I could talk to her again.

"You stay here and take care of Hugo and Rose." Harry nodded. "Make sure she doesn't get pissed or call Scorpius over, like she fully intends to."

Rosie scowled at me for knowing her so well, while Hugo snored a little louder. Harry looked sombrely at me for a moment, then wished me luck.

"Thanks, mate."

He smiled at that and waved me off.

Luck was something I would definitely need it.

***~***

"You're fully aware we kissed," Sarah continued, confident that she had my attention. She was only making me want to punch the life out of her even more. "What you don't know is that it was the first and last time it happened. You also don't know that Ron had turned me down a few days earlier because he couldn't, and I quote, 'do this to Hermione and my family. They're my whole life.'"

If she had slapped me, it wouldn't sting as badly as those words did.

"That day, he didn't even kiss me back. And I'm pretty sure he was about to push me away when that bloody reporter took that photo of us." Sarah looked me dead in the eye and added, "He doesn't want me, Hermione, he never did."

"He wants you."

***~***

"She's not here, Ron," Angelina repeated. Her eyes were heavy-lidded from sleep, and she looked mildly annoyed. "We told you that the first time you showed up here looking for her."

"Now please leave."

***~***

"And why should I believe _you?_" I asked, staring at a spot in the wall just above her head. For some reason, I couldn't quite meet Sarah's eyes. Guilt was starting to settle in, as her story started to sound a lot more like the truth and a lot less like deceit.

"You don't have to," she stood up and walked over to the mantelpiece, "but I'm telling the truth. I'm done hurting Ron, and I owed him at least this – a little bit of honesty. I told him, that night at the hospital, that you wouldn't make it there, when I was fully aware that you were trying very hard to."

_That cow. _

"The Healers informed me of that, but I kept Ron in the dark because I knew how it would make him feel, what he would think of you. I was the one that saved his life, and he still chose you over me."

She looked so sad that had she been anyone else, I would hug her. But this was the woman who had torn my world apart, and I couldn't bring myself to forgive her. Not now. Maybe not ever.

"I manipulated him because I was jealous of you, and I'm not proud of it. I'm trying to make it right." She grabbed some Floo Powder and looked at me one last time. "So, yes, you have every reason not to believe me. But deep down, I think you know that I'm telling you the truth."

"Go back to Ron," Sarah told me. She stepped into the fireplace, her stance defiant, even though tears rolled down her face. "I never stood a chance, and God knows I've tried. But he loves you, and only you."

"Don't be stupid, Hermione."

With that, she was engulfed by the emerald flames and gone from my room.

***~* **

I sat on our bed four hours later, too exhausted to care about taking off my shoes. Hermione had vanished from the face of the earth, and I hadn't found her. I'd revisited again every one of our friends and family and had wandered around all of our favourite spots, even the ones in Muggle London.

For the second time since this whole mess started, I had come up with nothing.

I was beginning to think I had truly lost her forever.

A loud crack came from the kitchen, and my heart stopped. I flung myself down the stairs just in time to see her putting her bags down.

I felt like I would explode from the myriad of emotions playing themselves out in my head – I was so relieved, angry, happy, and confused.

But most importantly – I was hopeful.

Hermione was finally home.

***~***

**AN: **Awww...It seems like they will finally work it out! But will they? Inner-Bella sends her love, thank you for waiting for this chapter, and asks you politely to review. Otherwise...Well, are you really prepared to take this chance? (Ps: many thanks goes to my beta lisafiction89, for being the awesomeness that she is and convincing Inner-Bella to try and play nice).


	13. Don't Think Twice It's Alright

**Crossroads**

**Chapter 12 – Don't Think Twice It's Alright.**

"_He said it's crazy how love stays with me,  
You know it hurts me that I didn't figure it out before...  
And now it's too late for a soliloquy  
It's way too late for dignity – it's time for apologies."_

Apologies – Grace Potter and The Nocturnals.

***~***

The first rays of sunlight appeared as I Apparated into our kitchen, the setting of our many fights and reconciliations. Ron was standing there, gobsmacked, and my heart was pounding so hard that I felt it was trying to rip its way out of my ribcage. I sent a tentative smile his way, and he beamed back at me, looking dazed, as if he couldn't quite believe his luck.

I was home, I'd come back.

And for him, it was enough.

He closed the distance between us in three strides and held me close his chest, to his heart, like he hadn't for a long time. I could feel the tears threatening to escape while I surrendered to the sweetness of the moment.

It felt like home to me, having his strong arms around my body, his chapped lips against my skin, his musky smell overpowering my senses.

I couldn't tell where he ended and I began, and it was the best feeling in the world.

It was perfect.

It couldn't last.

"You came home," he whispered reverently, his face burrowed in my hair. "I'm so sorry, Hermione. I never…" He sighed. "I love you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, and I'm so glad you've come home…"

He trailed off, unable to talk anymore, and I could feel his hands fisting in my hair, his tears falling against my cheek as he pressed his face against mine.

My own tears started to fall of their own accord, mingling with his. His hands cradled my face, and his mouth searched fervently for mine, our lips meeting in a searing kiss.

I gasped against his lips, and he teased my mouth open. This kiss tasted bitter and salty, desperate and angry at the same time. My hands fisted the sides of his loose white shirt as his hands cupped my cheeks, encircled my neck, and then rested on my waist. I wanted to devour him whole, to savour him until I couldn't remember any taste but his, to hold on for as long as I lived.

We broke apart, gasping for breath. I closed my eyes, treasuring the feel of him, committing everything I loved about him to memory, determined to never forsake it again.

He rained soft butterfly kisses across my face, my collarbone, my cleavage, until he was kneeling on the floor, his arms encircling my hips, his face pressed against my stomach.

"I'm so sorry," he said again, his voice muffled by my shirt.

"Ron –" I tried to stop his apologies, but he shook his head, and I fell silent.

"I know I haven't been the husband you deserve lately. Hell, in years! And I know we haven't been kind to each other ever since the kids started school, but I want to fix this." He kissed my belly and my knees buckled, remembering how he'd used to do this when I'd been carrying our babies. "I want to fix _us. _ I never cheated on you, Hermione. That picture was – I know there's no plausible explanation for that, but I didn't kiss her back, I swear. And I know I'm worthy of it, but I was wondering – hoping, really – if maybe you could you forgive me?"

I wanted to _die_. I wanted to go back to the previous night to push _him _away. I wanted to go back and never, ever let _him _kiss me. I wanted Ron to have never kissed Sarah. I wanted so many things, and not one of them was possible.

"Ron, listen to me." How could I ever tell him? How could I not? "I know now you weren't having an affair with Sarah. I believe you." I ran my hands through his unique hair, feeling the texture and the silkiness of it, trying to memorize this too, committed to never forget anything about him. "She actually came to me and told me that much."

"She did?" The incredulity in his voice made me even more certain of Sarah's version of the supposed kiss. It had been true all along – Ron had never wanted her. "Why would she do that? Why would she want us to stay together?"

"I guess she just wanted you be happy." I couldn't bring myself to tell him that she loved him, but I had an inkling he already knew it, which made it even harder to say what I was about to.

"I think it would be for the best if we stayed separated for a while."

His whole body tensed, but he was still holding me; his face was still burrowed against my stomach. He wasn't letting me go, and for a minute, I was torn between relief and sadness. But once he knew what had happened earlier that night, he might never want to touch me again.

"But we have been separated! This entire time, when we weren't...ourselves, it felt like I had lost you. We were together, but we were apart." It was true, and there was nothing worse than being together but parted in your heart.

"Hermione, if you truly believe I'm not cheating on you, then why?" he asked, but I couldn't bring myself to answer him, to tell him about the man in the bar.

He was right – why should we be apart when we had just found each other again?

"I don't want to live without you anymore." And he stood up, his eyes searching mine. "Tell me, Hermione, how can I live without you? Without your kisses?" He brushed his lips against mine. "Without your eyes, without your beautiful, wise eyes?" He kissed them as well. "How can I live without waking up next to you every day, without making you laugh, without bickering with you over the five-hundred-page books you classify as 'light reading?'"

I couldn't help but chuckle through my tears. He brushed them away with his thumb and the laughter with his kiss, slowly and pliant this time, as if we had all the time in the world. I gave in, my body melding so easily against his, finding comfort in the familiarity, yet longing for more – more skin, more Ron.

Just more.

"How can I lose you again when I just got you back?" His question was rhetorical, and I felt no need to answer it, especially when he immediately distracted me by nipping on my bottom lip, deepening our kiss even more.

Before I realized it, my legs were encircling his waist, and he was carrying me out of the kitchen. The kiss grew frantic, and I yanked his shirt off, sending it flying somewhere around our drawing room.

His lips were now latched onto a known sensitive spot on my neck, one of his hands tugging on the hair at the nape of my neck. I moaned out loud and kissed his eyes, his nose, any place I could reach.

I was impatient, eager; my hands itched to feel every part of Ron, to touch, to grope, to scratch and mark him as mine – my husband, my lover, my everything.

I knew we had made it to the bedroom when Ron suddenly fell onto the mattress, taking me on the top of him, straddling his hips.

"Oof," he whooshed, and I started to laugh, followed quickly by him. I unpinned my hair, still laughing, letting it curl wildly around my face. Ron tucked one of the curls behind my ear and ran his hands up and down my arms. Goosebumps erupted on my flesh and I smiled, feeling somewhat shy at the intimacy of his gesture, even though this was the man I had made love with countless times.

Desire uncoiled warm and liquid in my stomach as I pulled my yellow dress over my head with one quick move, now clad only in my knickers and bra. Ron raised himself up on his elbows and kissed the valley between my breasts, the beauty mark on my left shoulder, and then a spot just below my right ear.

A needy noise escaped my lips and Ron groaned against my skin, moving his hips just a little to the right, but just enough to send a thrill down my spine as his erection pressed harder against my inner thigh.

I was so enthralled, so caught up, that I didn't realize when Ron stopped his ministrations. I pried my eyes open and saw him staring at my neckline, his face growing red.

"What's this, Hermione?" Ron sounded normal, but the look on his face told a different story. Confused, I shrugged.

"What's what?"

"This," he said, his fingers skimming over the patch of skin just above my collarbone. "I didn't do this."

My stomach sank as I quickly realized what this meant – the proof of my early temporary insanity was there, and there was no denying it, no avoiding it, no dancing around the subject – Ron would have to know what had happened.

Even though I had never intended to hide my random and anger-fuelled encounter from him, I wasn't ready to share what had happened yet. But fate had sneaked up on us and rushed my admission, and now I'd no idea how to act.

My stomach was twisted into knots. His face was set into stony, unforgiving lines, and I was very aware that this confession could cost me everything I'd ever had – Ron's trust, the respect of my children, the life we had built together.

"I went for a drink at a bar tonight. I was so upset…" My hands were sweating, and I felt like I might be sick again, but I forced myself to go on speaking.

"I ran into someone there, an old acquaintance, and we started talking and drinking, and before I knew it, I had told him everything about our problems – the fights, the distance. About Sarah and the fact that I just had been publicly humiliated when your affair was plastered on Britain's most read journal."

"Him?" he asked, his hands shaking, and I nodded. This was a hundred times harder than I had expected. "And? What else happened, Hermione?"

His voice was firm and emotionless, a dangerous tone for him, I knew that much, and the storm forming in his eyes couldn't be mistaken for anything else.

I'd rather have him yelling at me than to hear the casualness in his voice, to see the barely suppressed rage in the once kind eyes I loved so much.

"I wasn't thinking straight and I – we decided to go back to my hotel room. I was really drowsy from the drinks and so _angry _at you." My skin was crawling just from remembering his touch and how wrong it had felt. "I wanted to hurt you, to betray you like you had betrayed me. So I let him kiss me."

Ron arms went limp around my body, and ten heartbeats passed without either of us doing as much as breathing. I gingerly crawled off his lap and he got up, stepping away and looking at me as if we were strangers.

If I'd wanted to die before, that was nothing compared to how I felt now. I would give everything to erase the blank look on his face, the one I'd put it there.

"Did you kiss him back?" I shook my head, desperation bubbling in the back of my throat, but his tirade continued nonetheless. "Did you let him fuck you?"

"No!" I felt like I needed to cleanse myself from the night's sordid encounter, and telling Ron the whole truth might help me do it. "For a minute, I wanted to." I took a deep breath, trying to compose myself, mortally afraid of saying the wrong thing and having him walk away from me. "But I didn't want _him_, so I couldn't go through with it, I wouldn't. Even though I hated you, I still loved you too much to do it. I couldn't bring myself to let it happen – it felt _so wrong_."

"He wasn't you."

We just stared at each other from across the room, the hostile look on Ron's face faltering, while mine was openly hopeful for a few blessed minutes of silence.

Then he asked me the very question that I had dared to wish he wouldn't.

"Who was he, Hermione?" With a whoosh, the air was expelled from lungs, and I started to panic when I truly grasped that we might never get past this.

"_Who was he_?" And I could've dealt with the anger, with everything he could throw at me, except with this – the obvious hurt and vulnerability behind his question, obvious in his face. _This_ was unbearable.

I had to tell him, even if it destroyed us.

"Seamus Finnigan," I whispered. He recoiled, horrified, the words ringing through the room like a venomous poison running through his system.

What it made it so hard was not the fact it had been Seamus, his old friend from Hogwarts, the one who had cut everyone off after the end of the war when the loss of the girl he'd loved was too much for him to take. No, what Ron was really struggling with was the fact that I'd entertained the thought of being with someone else, letting them touch me.

The identity of that someone just made it worse.

"No," he protested, but it sounded feeble even to my ears – there wasn't any vehemence or passion behind it.

Nothing either of us could say would change the fact that we had both made huge mistakes, that he'd let himself be seduced by his co-worker, that I hadn't trusted him enough to confront him about it and had mistakenly lashed out, trying to hurt him. I had succeeded spectacularly, but this was the kind of success that only made me wish I'd failed instead.

How could I have thought that revenge would give me some kind of satisfaction?

How could I have thought that by hurting the man I love, I would hurt less?

There was no gain, no sweet taste of triumph in what I'd done – only misery.

And now, I wanted to make it right. I _needed _to make it right. So I couldn't help it – I reached for him. I wanted so much to touch him, to make his pain go away, but I was the one that had put it there on the first place, and we both knew it.

"Ron," I said, "I'm so –" But he stepped away from my embrace and my feeble attempt at an apology. He was looking at me as if he couldn't bear to, but couldn't look away either. His silence was filled with accusations. Mine, with regret.

How could I have done this to him, and him to me?

Why had we claimed to love each other but gotten so busy, been so blind, so careless, to let it get this far? Why hadn't we seen it coming?

Why hadn't we stopped it?

"He means nothing to me," I said, as I tried to make him understand. "What happened with him means nothing to me!"

His laugher startled and scared me, hollow and cheerless, a mere echo or maybe a mockery of the real laugh I loved.

"It means _everything_ to me, Hermione. How come you don't know that?"

His words cut through me like ice, and I felt him beginning to retreat within himself. Ron looked away from me as I tried to reach for him, to bring him back.

"Please, Ron, don't turn away from me. You've got to understand, you've got to forgive me…" I didn't care that I was pleading – I couldn't _lose _him.

"I don't have to fucking do _anything!_" he screamed, fury burning both of us now, and I thought that maybe, maybe anger was better. An angry Ron, I could understand, could deal with.

Anything was better than the hurt, silent one.

"I can't even look at you right now, Hermione." I was shaking from head to toe as I stumbled in his direction. "You must've known how this would make me feel. At some point, you must've known this would fucking kill me!"

And I just stood there in front of him, tears streaming down my face. What could I say to make it better? He was right – I had known how it would make him feel, and that had been part of the reason why I had done it.

I'd needed to feel needed again, wanted to be wanted. I'd wanted to hurt him for hurting me. And I'd gotten everything I'd wanted, but I'd crashed and burned.

And right now there was only thing I wanted, and it was Ron to look me in the eye again. Maybe he could see there just how much I loved him. Maybe he could see my forgiveness in there, so that he would also be able to forgive me.

At least he wasn't leaving me. He was still there, still listening. He hadn't closed off into his own world of hurt and betrayal, not yet, so I still had a chance.

But this small ray of hope was squashed when he looked past me, past my tears and my love, and announced to no one in particular.

"I'm out of here."

"No, Ron, don't go!" I sobbed. "Please, don't leave me again!" This felt a hundred times worse than when he had walked out on me during the Horcrux hunt.

"Please, tell me we can fix this," I begged. "If you walk out, if you leave, I'm afraid we'll never be able to recover."

"That's the problem – I don't think we can," he said, and then he gave me the saddest smile I'd ever seen. "Now I'm not even sure I want to anymore."

And with a loud pop, he Apparated away.

***~***

**A.N: **I gotta say, this was the hardest chapter I've written so far, the most over-analyzed one, to the point of frustration. The first draft was ready by April, but since them, it had been bothering me to the point I've chucked out the whole thing and started from scratch, somewhat inspired by an episode of Friends (!). The first person to recognize the shout-out will get a Ron/Hermione drabble with the prompt of their choice. I'm not completely satisfied with this chapter, nor I think I ever will, but I do hope you guys enjoy it. I hadn't planned on revealing the name of the guy Hermione was with, but after endless discussions with my beta, I thought it would feel like cheating to leave you guys on the dark.

To wrap up this gigantic author's note, keep the faith, and remember there's always hope for an happy ending. Thank you so much for your patience and your reviews, they are so important, and they always encourage me not to give up on this story even when it's giving me a hard time. An immense hug goes to Lisa, for being a grammar and punctuation nazi, as well as my personal cheerleader and ear to rant to =D You can also find me now on twitter under this penname (sophialobato). Goodnight, and goodbye!


	14. Lady Weeping At The Crossroads

**Mini Author-Note: this chapter alternates POVs between Hermione/Ron until the very last section, ending with Sarah's perspective. The sections are all separated by this mark - *~*. I tried not to make it sound too confusing, but since their voices are so clear in my head, I've no idea whether or not it worked. I know this chapter doesn't have much action, but bear with me folks - things are starting to turn around for our favorite couple.**

**Crossroads**

**Chapter 13 – ****Lady Weeping At The Crossroads.**

"_Now it's over, and now it's done;  
Why does everything look the same?  
Just as bright, the unheeding sun, --  
Can't it see that the parting came? "_

Finis – Dorothy Parker

When I was younger, and in love, and naïve, I'd thought that the worst things that could've happened to Ron and I had already happened, and that the fact that we had been tested so many times meant that what we had could never break, and that our love would never falter.

I thought that since we had overcome so much and triumphed in the end, that there was nothing we couldn't endure, that nothing could come between us.

Laying in our bed now, staring at the empty space he had left behind, I could see how wrong I, the supposedly smartest witch of my generation, had been.

Red.

Red was all that I could see after I Apparated out of our bedroom. Red clouded my vision, tasted bitter and metallic in my mouth, crawled terribly across my skin. I couldn't stand still, couldn't think straight, couldn't stop moving.

If I did, I could see her with exact clarity – could see her eyes, guileless and hurt. They haunted me everywhere I went. There was no escaping her – not in the crowded streets of London, not on the riverside in Bristol, not even at the peaceful countryside near my childhood home.

She was there, everywhere I went.

As the minutes after his departure turned into hours, I couldn't help but wonder: is it really over? Had Ron meant what he said? Had we reached the point of no return? What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to feel?

So many questions left unanswered.

I had never thought we would end this way.

I had never thought we would end, period.

When I married Ron, I thought, "this is it". This is the man I will spend the rest of my life with, the man I'll share a life and a bed, the man who will father my children. I was marrying the love of my life, and we were destined to that elusive "happily ever after," the ones you hear in stories when you're a little girl.

I'd never even considered it, not even once, that something could tear us apart. That our own stupid, stubborn ways would create this distance between us, that it would come a day that we would barely recognize ourselves.

I'd never thought there would be another man but him, and I'd certainly never thought I could lose him to another woman. But there it was – I had been with another man, and I had nearly lost him to another woman.

I still could.

Where had we gone wrong? How come our marriage fell apart right under our noses while we just sat there and let it happen? Worst, had _helped _it happen?

I remember how much we loved to be together, just enjoying each other's company. How one night spent sitting in our drawing room could be filled with quiet love and affection. I still remembered how we would kiss just for the sake of kissing, just because we loved tasting each other lips, just...because.

But how long had it been since we'd been together? How long had it been since I'd felt Ron's hands on me? Why hadn't I done something about this before?

Why I was foolish enough to trick myself into thinking he didn't needed me as much I needed him? Why I'd let him believe the opposite was true?

Why had he let me?

There were so many questions left unanswered, and the lack of an actual response, of something to make sense out of it, left me spinning out of control.

Five.

Five steps were the exact distance separating me from that blue door.

I paced in front of the house, not quite sure whether I should walk up and knock on the door or just walk away. I didn't know which reaction I would get after everything that had transpired over the last couple of days.

She would be angry, for one. I knew she had tried to see me, or at least talk to me, after The Prophet had published that sordid story, but I'd ignored her.

I'd been in no frame of mind to deal with her, not when all I'd thought about was that I had lost Hermione. And while I'd agonized over that, my wife had been getting her revenge.

And there it was – that tightening in my chest, that prickling sensation in my eyes that burned me every time I thought about Hermione with Seamus. I was going crazy picturing them together, conjuring up all those sordid scenarios in my head, wondering what exactly had and hadn't happened between them.

I barely had it together, still struggling to calm that feeling inside me that told me to track down Seamus and Avada Kedavra the fuck out of him. Maybe add a punch or two before, just for the hell of it.

But there was one thing I knew for sure – I definitely wasn't ready to go back home and face Hermione again, not now. Besides, she had taken her own sweet time to get back home, so why shouldn't I treat her with the same courtesy?

A light went on inside the kitchen, and I suddenly came to a decision – it wasn't like I had anywhere else to go. So I steadied myself, squashing whatever doubts I had about this idea, and knocked on the door of the blue house.

When my sister answered the door, three things happened at once – she shoved me, hard, against the door frame. My niece gasped and let the mug in her hands fall down, breaking it and spilling tea all over the wooden floor. Harry rushed into the kitchen, hearing the ruckus, and sighed once he'd surveyed the scene, walking up to us and pulling his enraged wife away from me.

We all stared at each other for a moment before I shook my head and greeted them as nonchalantly as possible, given the situation.

"Hullo, Harry, Ginny," I said, and shot my furious sister a half-smile before turning to my oldest niece, who was still staring at me. "Victoire. This is a surprise."

I couldn't pinpoint exactly when things started to change between us. Maybe it was when Rose or Hugo left for school. Maybe it was when we decided to have another baby, but nothing happened even as we kept trying.

Maybe it was when I'd accepted the position of Head of the Department of Magic Law Enforcement without discussing with him first, even though I knew it would greatly increase the hours I would've to spend working, that it would mean a lot more time apart.

But I had never noticed when we first started drifting apart. Never realized we were less and less loving, never realized we had stopped cuddling in bed.

How we hardly did anything together – how we didn't even bicker anymore.

No, I never saw any of it, too wrapped up into work and so accustomed to the idea of the couple we used to be to notice the couple we were becoming.

"You have five minutes to explain yourself before I nail your bollocks to the wall, Ron," Ginny growled at me, twirling her wand in her hands. Harry coughed, and she had the decency to blush a bit. "Sorry, Victoire."

"Yeah, that's..." She looked a little bit overwhelmed. "I think I'll be going, Aunt Ginny. Bye, Uncle Ron, Uncle Harry."

"See you later," Harry answered her feebly, while I nodded.

"She came by to tell us she's pregnant," he blurted out, and I found myself smiling despite everything.

"Blimey, a baby?" I wondered aloud, and Harry smiled back. "Bill's a grandfather!"

"I know. Poor Teddy."

"Harry!" Ginny's high-pitched shriek brought us out of our reverie. "Ron is supposed to be grovelling for acting like a total fuck-wit, not joking around!"

"Would you keep it together?" I asked her, and she shot me a dark look.

"Talk," she ordered me, her tone all business, "before I decide to skip the explanation part and just hex you." She added sweetly, before continuing.

"Then I'll call Mum over to finish the job."

When both of our kids started school, life suddenly got a lot emptier. This gigantic, Rose and Hugo-shaped void seemed to inhabit my soul, and loom over our house.

Some call it "empty nest syndrome", but I just missed my children.

It was around the same time I was offered the Head position at my job. Around the same time Ron started to put in more hours at his department. Around the same time I started to make excuses – I couldn't make our weekly dinner to Harry and Ginny because I had a lot of paperwork to do. I had a headache. I had a conference. I had millions little things to take care of.

I had no time for anything family-related.

Because I knew that if I stopped, I would have had to think about it.

And if I did, I would've fallen apart.

So I pushed him away. I pushed _everyone _away.

And Ron, dejected, started to push back. When I wanted to see my parents, he'd want to catch Cannons game at the Wireless. When I cooked us dinner, he would've an Auror-related emergency to take care of. When I put on sexy, new lingerie, he accidentally got home late, and I was already asleep. When I suggested a date, he'd made plans with Harry or Ginny or with _anyone_ but me.

He resented me for never being available when he'd wanted me to, I could understand that now. I had resented him for all the same reasons. And because we were so full of anger and doubts and bitterness, we never discussed it.

We just let the other drift further and further away.

And now, we were standing at a crossroads.

I still loved him; there was no doubt about that. But I wasn't sure if our marriage still stood a chance, not after all the horrible things Ron had said before leaving me, not when he hadn't come back, when he hadn't even send a note telling me where he was.

The fact that Ron hadn't came home filled with insecurities.

What if he went after Sarah?

Could I forgive him if something happened between them?

Could he forgive my own close call with Seamus?

And the most important question of all - should love be this difficult?

"Look, Ginny, don't get your knickers into a twist, but I really need to talk to Harry right now." My sister looked literally ready to jump at my throat at a moment's notice. "And Hermione...she could really use a friend right now. Could you please drop by my place and keep her company?"

"She's come home, mate?" Harry asked me, a hint of smile on his face right before he noticed the gloomy look on mine. "I suppose things didn't went well then?"

"Yeah," I told him, and then I turned to my sister, pleading. "Please, Ginny?"

Her expression softened, but not entirely.

"Of course," she consented. "Just...you didn't cheat on her, did you?"

"It's a lot more complicated than that right now," I informed her.

"Fine, I'll go now," she said, and grabbed the Floo powder above the fireplace in the kitchen. "Is there something you want me to tell her when I get there?"

Her question caught me off guard, like a punch in the gut. I nearly shrugged it off, but something stopped the words from leaving my lips.

Was I hurt by what Hermione had done? Yes, very much. But did I really want to see her suffer even more than she already had?

_No, _I suddenly realized.

"Just tell her I'm with Harry, okay?" I quietly told Ginny, my voice almost breaking and betraying my state of mind.

"Okay," Ginny repeated, eyeing me purposefully, as if she actually knew what I really wanted Hermione to know – that I didn't wanted her to worry, that I still cared about her.

The funny thing was that, at first, it wasn't about Sarah or Seamus or anyone else but us at all. _We _had come between _us. _Our pride. Our inflexibility. It was never about them – it had everything to do with Ron and me, our flaws as individuals, our flaws as a couple. And I saw them now – very clearly.

When I was upset, I tended to retire into my own little world. I needed some time to think, to reflect, to process. If I didn't, I would lash out, sometimes even viciously. When I didn't understood it, my first reflect was to get defensive.

Ron was the same way.

That was why we fought so much – we knew how to push each other's buttons. And for a while, it was okay, because it helped us talk, helped us show and maintain a united front when it came to our kids, our jobs, our lives. But when the kids weren't there anymore, every day, we forgot that we needed this unity, this partnership not only as parents, but as a couple too.

And those new fights, they were different. And I understand now that we fought because we didn't know how to deal with ourselves without any sort of buffer. Before, we had Harry, and after we had the kids.

But without them, there was no need to made-up, no need to lower your voice, no need to take a time out and cool it off. The children weren't there, and we could go at it for hours, until one called it quits and retired to one's office.

And as we stopped apologizing, we also stopped talking. So we fought even more, barely taking a break from it when holidays arrived. When they did, things suddenly returned to normal again. We were a family again – we joked, we laughed, we made love.

This would last until the holidays ended and the kids returned to school.

Then we were lost.

So we went back to not dealing with "the void", went back to denying it, went back to being at each other's throats.

Now this is the part that confuses me – how we stopped from being mad at each other to just being indifferent. From, instead of arguing because one of us forgot to buy groceries for the week, we just ignored it.

How did we go from being overly aggressive to not being anything at all.

We spoke, but never _talked_. We slept on the same bed but never slept together. We listened without paying attention. We touched only with need, but without feeling. We were married, but we didn't share a life anymore.

Our house wasn't a home anymore.

And this is what killed me – knowing that even though I would love to blame Ron for the whole fiasco, that we had all played a part in it, that we were both to blame.

I had never thought marriage would be easy, but I never thought I would be this hard as well. Because, after all, isn't it all about love?

We had plenty of it – there was no one I could ever love or desire like I loved him, like I wanted him. And there was a time when I knew that he felt the same about me, this same unbidden love and need, but I wasn't quite as sure about this anymore.

I had no idea where I stood with him, where we stood.

All I knew was that I wanted him to come home so we try to be _us _again, Ron-and-Hermione, husband and wife, lovers and friends. I wanted us to stay together – even though I'd lost sight of this before, this was all I'd ever wanted.

Most of all, I wanted another chance at love, with him. I wanted our marriage to have another chance. I wanted us not to start over; I wanted to rebuild what we once had, to search for what we had lost along the way.

I wanted it all to be forgiven: Seamus, Sarah, the space between us. Because in the end of the line, it didn't mattered – I still wanted to spend the rest of my life with Ron. I was still in love with him. Since I'd no idea where we went, all there was left to do was to wait, and hope, and wish that he would realize this as well.

I let the tears come and wondered again where he could be, and when or if was he was coming home. And I kept on waiting.

Thanks for coming by," I told the woman that had destroyed so many lives, putting on my brave face before letting that snake into my home. "Come in, Miss Winchcombe."

"Please, we're all friends here," she said to me, trying to act friendly so that I could feel comfortable around her. I did my best not to bare my teeth at such an obvious attempt to win me over. "Feel free to call me Agatha."

Winchcombe was obviously very pleased with herself – and why not? After all, she was getting an exclusive with the home-wrecker that had destroyed the Weasley household, wasn't she?

"I must say that I was very surprised to receive your owl, Sarah." She smiled once again, flashing those blindingly white teeth of hers. "Pleased, nonetheless."

"Of course," I said, gritting my teeth, trying to restrain from punching her in the face and breaking her pretty little nose. "Would you like some tea?"

"I would rather we just got down to it." Her tone turned business-like in a second, her pupils dilating with greed. She knew she had a great story in her hands, and she was eager to tell it. This time, though, I would make damn sure she would report it like I wanted her to.

"First," I began, sending her a smile as sweet and fake as hers had been mere moments ago, "we have to make three things clear. You'll be writing this story, but _only _as I tell it. I'll have to proofread and okay the final version of our interview before you publish it. I'll also need an Unbreakable Vow as reassurance, just to be on the safe side, you know?"

"But Sarah," she started, completely blindsided by my last request. "Isn't that a bit extreme?"

"Not really." I poured us a cup of tea, adding three cubs of sugar to mine. "My other option is to trust your word, and we can all agree it would be rather stupid of me to agree to do that after everything that's happened. So it's up to you, really. If you say yes, then we can proceed with the interview. If we disagree, well, I'm sure there are plenty of other reporters just dying to publish my side of this story."

"Now tell me, do you take milk with that, _Agatha_?"

**A.N:** First of all - I'm back, baby! THANK YOU so much, each and every one of you who never gave up on this story, sending pms and e-mails about its faith, and even nominating me to the **Ron/Hermione 2009 Awards** at livejournal. I have the best readers in the world, and I'm dedicating this chapter to all of you who kept on writing to me about this during those long months of "hellatus". My laptop is coming back this thursday, which means, oh yeah, an update in the early days of April, can you believe it?

Now, **the second most importand part of this Author Note** - there's been some questions on the timeline of this story. This story starts when Ron finds out that Sarah has feelings for him, two weeks before Halloween. Ron's accident happens on October, 25th, the affair-story gets published on the 26th and Hermione comes home at the early hours of October 30th. Apparently, since this story has been going on for a couple of months, it may _feels _like it's been months, when it's actually very little time passed for this characters. While Ron and Hermione problems started long before the timeline on this story, Sarah and Seamus didn't factor into the equation until much later.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and care about the story I'm trying to tell here. Enjoy the new chapter, and please review =D It appeases my inner-Bellatrix, and it makes for a happy ending after all.


	15. Conversation Among Ruins

**Crossroads**

**Chapter 14 – Conversation Among The Ruins.**

"_So strange how everything went wrong so fast  
And I hope that this confusion does not last  
These words might be, too little too late,  
And I'm afraid that I have already lost you."_

In The Water I Am Beautiful – City And Colour

* * *

Ginny hesitated in the doorsteps of her brother's house, not entirely sure how to act around Hermione in the wake of everything that'd happened in the last couple of days. She didn't know what she might walk into, she wasn't even sure how welcomed her presence there would be, and this worried her.

She loved Hermione like a sister, like a friend, but Ron was still her brother, the one she was closest to, and she didn't knew where she stood. He didn't deny cheating on Hermione, but he didn't own up and claim responsibility either.

"_You're of no use standing here, cowering like a eleven year-old before the Sorting Hat," _Ginny thought, and steadying herself, she pushed the door of the kitchen entrance and stepped in.

"_Aw_, bloody fuck!" Her niece was lying down on the top of the kitchen table, wearing sunglasses and wincing. "This door squeaks like a motherf–"

"And hullo to you too, Rosie," Ginny smiled, always bemused at her goddaughter's antics. "I can see you've picked up some nice manners while travelling the globe under my magazine's cost."

"Please, Aunt Ginny," and she whimpered, curling herself into a foetal position. "I'm in pain, suffering in the deepest pits of hell, with a hangover to end all hangovers. My useless little brother promised to brew me some tea, but had to run to the loo to throw up and has yet to surface from there."

"So, please help me. Pretend I'm James in his wild years." Rose tried to muster what she surely felt it was a charming smile, but was actually looked more like a grimace. "Feed me first and mock me later."

"Where's your mother?"

"Who in the bloody hell knows? Last thing I heard before passing out last night was Uncle Harry using a spell to levitate me to my bedroom, while Dad tried to wake Hugo up. He was supposed to head out and chase after Mum later." She massaged her temples, still wincing. "Do tell Uncle Harry I deeply appreciate his help last night, though he should've considered leaving me with a hangover potion of sorts. Oh, and that I resent his insinuations about my weight too."

"You do seem to have packed on a bit, Rose," Ginny casually remarked, while ransacking the practically empty fridge for something edible to cook for her niece. "Too much couscous? Or was it paella this time?"

"I was in Florence, Aunt Ginny, as you bloody well know it," she said, sounding somewhat annoyed. "Plus, Scorpius likes it," she added with a wink. "He claims that now there's more of me to…love."

They were still laughing when a very pale and red-eyed Hermione padded into the kitchen looking utterly confused and out of place, dressed only in an overly large orange shirt with the Cannons crest that reached to her knees.

"Ginny? Rosie? What are you both doing here? Why are you laying on our kitchen table? Who is throwing up in the loo?" She started to tremble, her eyes red and her face swollen from lack of sleep and one too many tears. "Is it your father? Did he come back?"

* * *

"More," I growled towards Harry's general direction, whom, acting like the good friend he's supposed to be, dutifully refilled my glass with more liquor. "This Firewhiskey smells like shite," I informed him like the good friend I am as well, taking a huge gulp. "Tastes like it too."

"That's because it's not Firewhiskey, mate," Harry's exasperated voice could be heard from somewhere close. "It's Charlie's home-made hangover potion. You need to sober up and go home."

"Why?" I asked, trying not to sound like a petulant child refusing his parents' suggestion to take a nap.

"Because you need to talk to your wife."

"Not right now, I don't," I protested. "Right now, all I need is to have another drink so that I can forget everything about my wife and her sodding lover."

"You _know _she never slept with Seamus," Harry reasoned with me for what seemed like the fifth time since I'd come to his house and spilled my guts to him.

"Well, she might as well have."

"But she didn't. She came back to you, right? And she forgave you, she _believed _you when you told her nothing had happened between you and Sarah."

"Because nothing had fucking happened between Sarah and me," I snapped. "One stupid kiss and everything was shot to hell! I never even kissed her back."

"But you let her kiss you, didn't you?"

_Damn him and his logic. _

"Well, I don't care," I still insisted. "I wasn't the one who packed up and left without as much as note saying '_hey, guess what? I'm fucking leaving you'_. And I wasn't the one that went out looking for a revenge-shag as well, was I?"

"Ron." Harry's tone was eerily serious. "This needs to _stop_. In the end, does it really matter who did what? You were both wrong, and you're both hurting. But you still love her, and you still want her, don't you?"

"_She forgave you, _Ron." Harry sighed, and then continued. "Why can't you do the same thing for her?"

"_Because!"_ He was pushing it, and I finally exploded. "Because every time I think about _him _putting his hands all over her, I feel sick! _Because _I can't be in the same room with her without crying like a fucking baby! So right now, I can't love her, Harry. Right now, I can only hate her, hate her so much for doing this to me, for leaving me, _for breaking my fucking heart._

"So yeah, this is all I can manage to do right now, mate."

A couple of seconds passed in complete and utter silence before Harry added, his voice so soft and quiet that I almost didn't catch it. "You broke hers too."

"Well, fuck that! She's at fault too, you know?" Without even noticing, I was up and shaking with anger. "I came here to talk to my friend. When you see him, let him know I need his fucking _sympathy. _You know, like he needed mine when _his_ wife ditched him?"

With five strides, I'd walked past Harry and opened the door of this study.

"Ron, it's not like that –" He cried out, kicking the door closed.

"Then how is it like, Harry? Which side are you fucking on?"

"Can't you see? There are no sides," he said, staring me dead in the eye. "I know you're hurt, but I'm only trying to help my best friends. Both of them."

"Don't," I shakily told him. "You don't get to play the best friend card. You stopped acting like one when you and my wife planned my demotion behind my back!"

"It wasn't like that, Ron, and you know it." His voice was eerily calm now, and it made me madder. "I know why you're trying to pick a fight with me, I get it, but I won't let you. I _am _your best friend, Ron. I am your _brother._

"I'm also the only person that has your back right now. So if you need more time to figure it out, that's okay, and if you need to yell at me because you're angry, just go ahead. I'm still not letting you walk out on Hermione and your family."

Then he reached out and handed me a glass filled with what I'd been asking for ever since I stumbled into his house this morning.

"Maybe in a couple of hours you'll reconsider, then?"

"Yeah," I agreed and took a swing, the edge gone. The drink barely burned as it went down, and everything looked hazy around the edges. I couldn't feel a thing, and this was exactly I needed. "Maybe in a couple of hours."

* * *

"He said it was over," Hermione told Ginny for about the fourth time. "He told me he didn't care about us anymore, and then he left. He just _left_."

"I know, luv, I know," Ginny cooed into her sister-in-law's hair as she rocked her back in forth. They were still sitting on the kitchen. Rose had fled to Scorpius' house to give them some privacy, and Hugo was passed out in his room.

But Hermione had barely listened to her, just as she'd barely heard any other words coming out of Ginny's mouth ever since she'd told her sister-in-law where and with whom her brother was with.

"He _left_, and it felt like death. Why did he leave me when he'd promised me, _promised me_, he would never do this again?" Hermione was no longer shaking, but she had a faraway look on her face that worried Ginny. "He swore, but he lied. He still left, like his promise meant nothing, _like I meant_ _nothing_.

"He doesn't care about me anymore."

"That's not true, Hermione, and you know that," Ginny said, trying to soothe her. "If he didn't care, he would've ever sent me here. He wouldn't ask me to tell you where he is. But he did, because he didn't want you to worry about him, and because he didn't want you to be alone."

"But I begged him, Ginny," she snapped. "I _begged _him to stay, but he still left, and he hasn't come back. He doesn't want to come back," she continued, her voice breaking. "And I... I don't think I can ever forgive him for that."

* * *

"You know what's really ridiculous?" I asked Harry sometime later, playing with the loose strands of the carpet of his study. "I'd never really thought, never even considered, being with any other woman but Hermione.

"Even before the end of the War, before we ran off to destroy the Horcruxes, she was always the only woman I'd imagined spending the rest of my life with.

"Who has this sort of clarity at such a young age, right? I think I would have a heart attack if Rosie told me, at seventeen, that Scorpius Malfoy was it for her."

"You'll still have a heart attack if she tells you that right now, Ron," Harry pointed out, half-amused, half-serious. We both chuckled, because we both knew he was right. "But I think that, because of everything you and Hermione went through at that time, it was easier to realize this kind of thing."

"Maybe. But it was always there, in the back of my mind, you know?" I took another gulp of my drink. "From the instant I _knew, _there wasn't a moment in my life where I regretted being with Hermione."

And I was suddenly lost in memories of us – of _her_. If I closed my eyes, I could still see the moment she walked down the aisle into my arms in her wedding dress, wearing the biggest smile I'd ever see her give. I could remember what it felt like kissing her for the first time, what if felt like when we made love.

"Has this ever changed?" Harry asked, startling me out of my reverie.

"Has what changed?"

"Even after everything that's happened between you two, have you ever not wanted her in your life? Have you ever not loved her?"

I thought about what he was asking. I thought long and hard, thought about all of our problems, our mistakes, and there was no other answer but the one that popped into my mind just as soon as Harry had asked me those questions.

"No," I finally told him. "There was never a moment in my life where I didn't love Hermione, even if it's really hard to sometimes."

"So there you go, mate," he told me. "This is all you need to know. You've already made your decision." He sent a tentative smile on my way. "Go home. Go back to her".

* * *

"I can't do this anymore, Ginny," Hermione told her a couple of hours later. "I'm can't keep on fighting; I'm tired of feeling betrayed and suspicious.

"I wish I could just turn it off, you know? I wish I could just press an 'off' button on my love for your brother so that maybe, just _maybe_ I could stop feeling like there's this vital part of me missing. Even if it means to feel nothing at all."

"Do you think you can truly do that?" Ginny gently pressed, squeezing her sister-in-law cold hands with her warm ones. "Just stop loving someone?"

"Yes, I think I could do it," Hermione said after a long pause. "Not with your brother, though. No matter what happens, what has already happened, but I still love him, even when I don't really want to. That's what makes this so hard."

"Don't you think he feels the same way about you?" Ginny prodded. "It sure seems like he does."

"If you had asked me this question ten, or maybe five years ago, I would've been able to tell you with absolute certainty that _yes_, I do know that he loves me as I love him.

"But now... well, now I'm not so sure. And that scares me to death."

* * *

**A.N: **Whut whut? A DOUBLE update? Yes, it's true. I've missed you guys. Every one of you who are still out there, following this story - you deserve this update, and I hope you like what it's about to come. This is a turning point on Ron and Hermione's relationship, so hang in there. Those two belong together =) Also, sorry for the horizontal ruler separating sections of those chapters, because is being snooty and refusing to acknowledge my adorable mark *~*


	16. Echoes, Silence, Patience And Grace

**Crossroads **

**Chapter 1****5 – Echoes, Silence, Patience And Grace.**

"_Don't you want, don't you need,__  
__something more to set you free?__  
__Don't you want, don't you need, __  
__to be forgiven?__" _

Forgiven – Michael Lord

* * *

When I opened the door, Hermione was asleep on my side of the bed, curled into a foetal position and dressed in my old Cannons shirt. Her eyes were puffy, her nose, red, and her face tear-streaked, but she still looked beautiful to me.

This was the one woman that had this strange hold over me, the one that could've asked me anything and I would've given her, the one that knew all my flaws and weaknesses.

She was the one person that used to know me better than I knew myself.

But we had come such a long way from the person we each first fell in love with, because those people…They would've never hurt and betrayed our love as we had done.

I was still angry and confused, but more than anything filled with regret. I was the one who was thick enough to put myself into the situation that took everything that mattered to me away: her love, her trust, our kids, our marriage.

The life we'd built together.

And yes, the past couple of years certainly didn't felt like the life I'd thought it would be when we first got married, but Harry had made me realize that being miserable with her was a hell of a lot better than not being with her at all.

The truth was that I still loved her, could never stop loving her even if I wanted to, like I'd thought I had.

No, Harry was right – without having Hermione and my children in my life, what's the point? It would feel a lot like death, except without the perks of being able to see my brother Fred again.

I really, truly and completely love, her even with all the shite that's happened with Seamus and Sarah, despite her shortcomings and in spite of mine – and they were so many… All the times I fell short, all the times I disappointed her.

All the times I hadn't been there for her.

I came back even though I'd said I didn't want to. At the moment, I had meant it, but now I was only sure that I loved and that I'd fix it – fix her, fix me_._

And maybe, just maybe, fix us.

* * *

It's strange how the person you love the most is the one that also can hurt you the worst. It's different with your children – you love them unconditionally, so when they hurt you, you forgive them. You always do. They're a part of you, and you love them no matter what. There are no limits, nothing that can't be absolved.

It's very different when it comes to the person you've chosen to be together with. You've chosen each other to trust and love, for better or worse. You never expect them to hurt you – because, how could they?

And that's just stupid, because how couldn't they?

It's human nature, you reason. And they never meant to do it, not really. But it doesn't matter, because in the end, it all hurts just the same.

* * *

I lay down next to her, trying my hardest to be as quiet as I could possibly be, but she opened her eyes when my weight hit the mattress.

She doesn't say a word, just looks at me, relieved.

I was glad I'd come home too.

* * *

We laid there for what could've possibly been hours, minutes or several years. It didn't even matter – it was exactly what we needed at the moment.

The silence wasn't filled with accusations this time – just sadness and questions. What would happen to us? There was there even still an 'us' to begin with?

I knew I still loved her, always had, and always would, but I'd no idea what I would do if she didn't feel the same. I'd no idea if she would still want me after I walked out when she told about Seamus, or what had happened with Sarah.

* * *

"Hungry?" She asked me, sometime later.

"Not really," I told her.

* * *

"I was at Harry's," I started. She nodded, letting me know she was listening. "We talked.

"I drank. A lot." She sighed. "Then I yelled at him for being a horrible friend."

"You still haven't forgiven him for your promotion?" She asked, the tone of her voice barely above a whisper. Gods, that felt like a lifetime ago. It probably was.

But maybe she wasn't really asking me about Harry.

"It takes time," I finally told her. "But I'm trying really hard to. And after what I put him through this morning, I really hope he can do the same thing for me."

* * *

She turned her back to me and stared at the wall. I wanted to see if she was crying, but I was afraid that if I touched her now and she recoiled, things would be as well as over between us, and I couldn't have that, I just couldn't handle it.

So I just laid there in silence, waiting for the storm to pass.

* * *

"Why did you do it?" She asked me, in this small, sort-of sad voice. I startled, and then rejoiced, because I'd nearly given up hope of her ever talking to me.

"Because I wanted to hurt you." Nothing but brutal honesty could do it now – Hermione and I had spent too much time lying to ourselves and look what happened to us?

The only honourable thing to do now was to tell her the truth.

"After I got hurt this last time, you didn't come home to see me. Do you have any idea how that made me feel, Hermione?

"I thought you didn't care about me anymore."

* * *

She turned to face me then, and I could see the pain in her eyes. I'd done what I'd intended to do when I let Sarah kiss me that day – I'd hurt Hermione just as badly as she'd hurt me.

But there wasn't any triumph in seeing the damage that I'd done and I finally understood that – only it was too little too late, and we both knew that.

Now all I had – all we both had – was the sour traces of regret and guilt on our mouths, like a nasty aftertaste that couldn't be washed down, no matter how many times we brushed our teeth.

* * *

"Did it make you feel better?" Hermione's voice was like an ocean of calm, accepting hurt, but her told me a different story, one that spoke of anger, resentment and regret.

"No." And I wasn't lying. Sarah had felt all wrong for me – her taste, her smell, and the sounds she made while she kissed me. "It never felt right."

"She wasn't the one I wanted." I closed my eyes. "But I guess I just wanted to feel like someone admired me, you know? I just wanted to feel...wanted."

The words left unspoken buzzed loudly between us – the reason I didn't want Sarah was Hermione. It had always been about Hermione for me.

* * *

"Is it over?" She finally asked, once again looking at me with those sad, guileless brown eyes that I loved so much. And what I see in hers make my own moisten and I knew that if I could do things over, I wouldn't have ever let Sarah's feelings for me sway in any direction but my wife's arms.

I would have tried sooner to get Hermione back, to blast the door of that damn room she'd holed herself in after she'd found out that god-awful paper and carried her away from her doubts about our marriage, away from Seamus' opened arms in the first place.

Hell, I would've done a lot of things differently if I could.

"Luv, it barely even started."

And I meant it.

* * *

"She lied, you know," Hermione said, looking me dead in the eye. "When I came back home last night, it was because she showed up at The Leaky and told me whole truth, and not only about the kiss, but the reasons behind it as well."

* * *

"I was coming home to you, Ron." Her eyes were filled with tears again. "The minute I heard about you being hurt, I walked out in the middle of a meeting in Vienna without never even looking back.

"You were unconscious, but I was told you were with a co-worker that was unavailable at the time, so I just left a message saying I was coming home as soon as possible."

Each and every one of her words felt like a punch in my stomach.

Sarah had lied, and I'd been so eager to believe the worst of Hermione that I'd never even bothered to check with someone else, maybe Harry.

I felt horrible.

Everything was my fault.

"Sarah lied to you, Ron," she continued. "I spent twenty-eight hours trying to come back home, I really did. But when I finally arrived, I wished I hadn't tried so hard."

* * *

"I'm sorry," I told her, and I knew from the way her eyes softened that she could tell I was being sincere.

"I'm sorry too," she admitted. "For so many things." Her face was red, her nose, scrunched up, and I could tell more tears were coming. "I'm sorry I lost my faith in you. For leaving you like I did.

"Most of all, for not being completely honest with you. Ron, there's something you need to know about Sea–"

"I don't want to hear it," I told her firmly. "It's in the past." She gave me this cute, little exasperated sigh, but I kept going. "Maybe not exactly in the past, but I _want _it to be. I need to put this behind us, okay? Can you give me that, luv?"

"Okay," she agreed hesitantly.

"Okay?" I pressed.

"Okay."

* * *

She closed her eyes, but didn't turn away from me this time. An eternity passed as I tried to keep myself in check, keep myself from reaching out to her hand, to her warmness, to her lips.

Even though right now I had no right to still claim her as mine, I still yearned for her with an intensity that couldn't be erased or ignored.

She was the one I wanted, the one I had sworn my life to.

How could I have been so stupid to sacrifice that? How could I've thought that by hurting her I could make myself feel better? How could I've been blind to what was right in front of me?

My wife.

My life.

My heart.

* * *

"I'm so tired, Ron…"

I knew what she meant. I was tired as well – sick of the fights, sick of being so angry all the time, sick of making mistakes. Most of all, I was really tired of feeling like I was feeling, as if this vital part of me had gone missing.

"I know," I acknowledge, and with this, she reached out for my hand and we're just a man and a woman, without any baggage between us, lying in a bed, side by side, holding hands, holding it together.

We were no longer strangers, though we weren't ourselves either.

"I'm tired too."

* * *

"Do you think we could still be like we used to be? Before all this?" I asked her sometime later. I didn't meant before Sarah or Seamus - I was talking about the time where nothing and no one could come between us.

"Because I'm hoping we can."

* * *

"And you?" I urged her, because she was so quiet and unmoving, and I desperately needed to know what she thought, what she wanted, while fearing the answer in itself. Our whole future was pending on her answer.

"I don't think so."

* * *

"Like before, it's over now, Ron…" I held my breath while my heart skipped a beat, then another and thirty more. After a while, she started talking again. "We're not who we used to be anymore. I think maybe that's okay – life changes you.

"So, no, I don't think we could be like before. But maybe we could be better."

* * *

With that, she turned away again, but only to snuggle closer to me, and my body welcomed her as if it was a drowning man trying to keep hold of something just so that he could stay afloat.

I took advantage of the proximity and held her tight, swearing to never let her go; to never let things get out of our control like they had.

Swearing that this time, we could be better.

That we would be better.

The sunset came and went, it beautiful colours lighting up our room while we kept on holding on for dear life.

* * *

**A.N: **I hope you guys liked it. Two chaptes, six more to go. Many hugs and thanks to Mugglemama, for helping me with this (and putting up with my shitty grammar and punctuation skills. Or lack thereof). I love you guys, thank you for sticking with me, and please review because your words make me smile =D


End file.
